How to remember maths for the long term

There is more to maths than just answering questions one after the other. Regular practice is absolutely the secret to success, but adding a few learning techniques in the mix as well will give learners that extra boost to feel super confident with maths.

This blog is part of a series where we talk about some of the learning techniques that we use within Numerise to help learners not only understand new, tricky maths skills but remember them for longer. One of the techniques that we use to help learners make great progress is spaced practice. We also have blogs on two other learning techniques used in Numerise: interleaving and scaffolding.

Image visualises what scaffolding, interleaving and spaced practice looks like with circles representing topics.

What is spaced practice?

Ever felt really confident after learning a new topic and re-visited it a few months later to find you can’t quite remember what to do? You’re not alone! Research shows that we forget a lot of what we learn, so in order to keep knowledge in the long run, we need to keep revisiting it.

Spaced practice is a technique that does just that. Rather than working through topics one after another, practice on each topic is spaced out over time (hence the name!). Making this simple change can dramatically improve long-term learning without any additional work.

Graph showing the relationship between retention and time and how spaced practice impacts that.

The best way to make learning stick is to revisit the topic just as you’re about to forget it. Each time you repeat the topic, the knowledge gets further embedded, meaning it will take longer to forget it. This means you need to revisit the topic less frequently over time.

Sound complicated? Luckily, Numerise has it covered for your child already…

As your child learns with Numerise, we build up a detailed picture of how they are progressing, what they have learnt and when, using an intelligent algorithm to work out the best time for each topic to be revisited.

We then create personalised revision tasks just for your child with questions from those topics, making sure they remember what they’ve learnt long into the future. They may even find this section tricky, highlighting how important it is for them to revisit material. But don’t worry, as with the rest of Numerise, every question has a short support video to help them if they get stuck.

Where can I find out more?

This short podcast by the learning scientists is a great place to start. And as always, if you have any questions please let us know on [email protected].