April 5, 2025 • 16 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jocelyn (00:00):
Hello there, welcome to this episode of the Structured
Literacy Podcast.
My name is Jocelyn and I'mbringing you this episode from
Tasmania, the lands of thePalawa people.
It's really important that we,as teachers and leaders,
understand the why of what we'redoing in our lessons.
Learning about human brainarchitecture and how it works is
(00:21):
an integral part of that.
While understanding literacyand its different features and
structures is important, it'salso critical to understand how
we can maximise every moment wehave with students in the
classroom, regardless of thelessons we're teaching.
Today, I'm going to share aconcept with you that will help
(00:43):
you reflect on your lessonstructure and how you're
designing instruction to enablestudents to get maximum benefit.
The concept we're exploringtoday is called primacy and
recency.
This concept has been aroundsince the 1880s, when it was
first described by Germanresearcher Hermann Ebbinghaus.
(01:05):
Ebbinghaus's study resulted inthe development of concepts and
understandings we still usetoday, such as the forgetting
curve and the importance ofspacing during practice.
It's always amazing to me whenI hear these dates, 1880s! So
for over 140 years this researchhas been in existence and we
(01:27):
are just coming to learn aboutit now.
Well, I suppose it's betterlate than never, but it does
highlight how long change takes.
So what is primacy and recency?
Well, primacy and recency issomething that every teacher
should know about.
When students walk out of theclassroom, what do they remember
(01:49):
after your lessons?
To answer this question,cognitive science offers some
really fascinating insights, andhere's one of them: that
students are most likely torecall what you taught at the
beginning and the end of thelesson, and this knowledge has
powerful implications for how westructure our teaching.
(02:11):
The primacy effect is aboutremembering what happened at the
start of the lesson, and thisoccurs because information
presented first receives fullattention and is processed
deeply into long-term memory.
Think about it as the firstimpression, and we hear all the
time first impressions last.
(02:33):
The information presented atthe start of your lesson gets
prime mental real estate becauseit arrives when attention is
fresh and there isn'tcompetition from other content.
The recency effect is aboutinformation being presented last
having the second rung on theprime time ladder.
(02:57):
This happens because it's stillsitting in our working memory
and is easily retrievable.
It hasn't had time to fade yetand it hasn't been pushed aside
by subsequent learning.
Still top of mind when studentsleave the classroom.
What goes on in the middle?
I hear you asking.
Well, that's where informationoften gets lost, in what
(03:19):
cognitive scientists call theserial position effect, which is
a tendency to remember thethings that happened first and
the things that happened lastmuch better than things that
happened in the middle.
So what does this mean for usas teachers?
Well, primarily, it means thatthe beginning and the end of
(03:39):
your lesson are prime time oroptimal moments for introducing
crucial concepts, summarisingkey points or setting important
learning tasks.
We can then save the middleportion of our lesson for
practice, application andexploration of concepts that we
introduced during the first lotof prime time minutes, which is
(04:04):
at the start of the lesson.
By deliberately structuringlessons with primacy and recency
in mind, we can significantlyenhance what students remember.
One of the ways we can do thisis by breaking longer lessons
into shorter segments of about20 to 30 minutes in length, and
(04:25):
that's a very general number,but we need numbers to work with
, so let's go with that.
Each one of these shortersegments then has its own
beginning and ending, and we cansignal transitions between them
with some visual anchors, someparticular questions or some
transition tasks.
(04:47):
If you break your lesson intosmaller chunks, each with their
specific first and last parts,that transition time between
them only needs to be between 30and 60 seconds, where we can
have students stand up, sit down, change their perspective or
have a specific way to switchfrom one task to another.
(05:07):
We don't need a 40-minute brainbreak between these learning
episodes.
Frankly, I think sometimesbrain breaks are just a waste of
instructional time.
We just really need somethingthat signals to the brain that
we're changing activities.
And, of course, there aredecisions around this that are
specific to age group andcontext and cohort, so I don't
(05:29):
want to be making sweepingstatements that apply to
everybody.
But the goal here is tomaximise learning time.
So by working with students inthe way that their brains
actually work, we can make surethat we're spending the most
time possible on instruction,rather than stretching them out
(05:52):
until they're exhausted and theythen need the 40-minute brain
break.
So let's work smarter here, notharder.
Now, why am I sharing theseideas of primacy and recency
with you?
Well, it's because it's reallyeasy to misuse them.
We can get in our own way andour students' way, when it comes
to learning outcomes.
When we ask students todiscover something for
(06:16):
themselves, when we posequestions about things we
haven't taught them yet and weask them what they think it
could mean and, let's be honest,we're doing this all the time,
we are getting in our own wayand their own way, because we're
misusing the prime time.
(06:36):
So, for example, we might beteaching a new lesson on ratio
in maths.
We could be teaching aboutphotosynthesis in science, or
similes in English, it doesn'tmatter.
But instead of explicitlyteaching the concepts, we say "I
wonder what simile could mean?
Talk to your partner and see ifyou can come up with an idea.
Now, the students will come upwith all sorts of ideas, and the
(06:59):
things they think about firstin this lesson are the things
they're most likely to remember.
So when we ask students to justcome up with ideas and search
for answers, we increase thechance that the thing they will
remember will be wrong.
Another way we misuse prime timeis by just not getting to the
(07:21):
point of the lesson.
We might begin by saying todaywe're going to learn about
similes, but then we remember wehaven't marked the role, so we
stop and do that.
And then we remember oh, wehave to collect the homework.
Oh, and don't forget, we've gotan excursion coming up, so
we've got dates for that.
Oh, and if you've got yourpermission note, bring it to me
now.
And by the time we get around toexplaining the concept we want
(07:42):
to teach, we've used up theentire prime time window on
things that we don't need thechildren to remember about that
day's learning.
So they won't remember what wewanted them to, because by the
time we start to actually unpackthe concept, we're now in the
middle of the lesson, or whatcould be called the downtime.
So when we start teaching, weneed to continue teaching, which
(08:06):
means we need to be wellorganised so that we have
students' focus at the start ofthe lesson and ensure that they
get the most value from thatpart of instruction.
I can hear people asking oh,but how many minutes is the
prime time?
And there are some suggestionsof how long each section of a
lesson this primacy, downtimeand recency could last.
(08:28):
But it's important to note thatthese recommendations are more
expert suggestions rather thanbeing based on explicit
empirical evidence.
So here we're being evidenceinformed, not necessarily
evidence based, and there aretimes when that's just going to
happen.
David Sousa, in his book How theBrain Learns, which is now in
(08:50):
its sixth edition, suggests abreakdown of lesson percentages
of 20% primacy, 60% practice and20% recency, and I cannot
stress enough that this is asuggestion, not an example
validated by controlledexperimental research.
So please remember that this isa knowledgeable expert offering
(09:14):
guidance, not a hard and fastrule.
But what research does supportis the importance of allocating
dedicated time at the beginningand end of learning segments for
critical information.
Research does support the valueof practice time between these
segments, so connecting toinformation processing theory
(09:37):
and the importance of rehearsalin encoding new information into
short-term and then long-termmemory.
So we've got the primacy, theintroduction, the practice and
then the summing up bit at theend.
That practice is critical.
Research also supports thebenefit of breaking down longer
sessions into smaller segments,each with its own beginning,
(09:59):
practice and ending.
So if you have a 90 minuteblock of time, that is a very
long time for students to focuson just one thing.
However, if you break it downinto three 30 minute segments,
each one then has its ownprimacy, practice, recency
structure and we're notrequiring students to
(10:20):
concentrate for longer thanthey're actually able to.
So that self-regulation staminais a thing and yes, it can be
increased, but let's work withstudents where they're up to
right now.
Different learning contextsmight benefit from different
time allocations based onfactors like student age and
their developmental stage, justin general, as children.
(10:43):
It'll also depend on howcomplex the subject matter is,
how familiar the studentsalready are with the content,
the time of day and the overalllesson length.
No two classrooms or schoolsare exactly the same because no
two students are exactly thesame, and this is why it's
important for us to understandthe principles that make
(11:06):
learning effective, not try andfind fixed rules that we apply
in every single circumstance.
So let's think about somepractical reflection questions
that you can use to evaluate howyou're using the prime time
windows in your lessons.
Question number one are wereserving the first part of
(11:26):
lessons for the most criticalconcepts, vocabulary and skills
and teaching them explicitly, orare we asking students to think
about things we haven't taughtthem yet or discover something
through some sort of exploration?
This prime time learning windowis when students will most
effectively encode informationinto short-term memory, which we
(11:50):
then practice to get it intolong-term memory.
We really don't want to wasteit.
The second question is how arewe deliberately creating
transitions that signal shiftsbetween lesson segments?
Are we using brief activitychanges, short movement
opportunities of no more than aminute long and clear verbal
(12:12):
cues, or are we using valuableinstructional time for
unnecessary activities likerunning around the oval or
having a 25-minute fruit break?
Strategic transitions createmultiple beginnings and endings
within a lesson, allowing us totake advantage of primacy and
(12:32):
recency over a longer period.
Question three are we holdingspace to provide summaries at
the end of the lesson?
So this one is one that Ialways struggled with in the
classroom myself because Ididn't manage time well enough.
When you work to the clock andyou know how many minutes you
(12:54):
have for each part of the lesson, then you can hold the valuable
space at the end forconsolidation activities like
retrieval practice, conceptmapping or student summarising.
This recency period is oursecond high retention
opportunity and often our owninability to manage time means
(13:15):
we don't get to it.
So let's be intentional abouthow we're allocating time and
using time effectively.
Question four are we gettingstraight to the point of
instruction when a lesson begins?
How are we intentionally movinghousekeeping tasks like taking
attendance or distributingmaterials or making
announcements to other times?
(13:37):
We need to keep these thingsout of the prime time windows.
And the last reflectionquestion is what is the maximum
time our students canmeaningfully engage in learning?
Are we structuring our lessonsaccordingly?
If you know that your studentscan focus effectively for about
(14:00):
30 minutes, then createbeginning, middle, end segments
that add up to that length oftime.
If you've got a 90-minute block, then you now have the
opportunity for three learningsegments, each with their own
primacy, practice and recencystructure, rather than
stretching a single structureacross the entire period and
(14:23):
watching the children drop offone after another throughout
that time because they simplycan't maintain the cognitive
stamina for all of that time.
I really hope that thesestraightforward strategies help
you implement cognitive scienceprinciples without feeling like
you need to completely overhaulinstruction.
(14:44):
I'm not asking you to take theliteracy block and tip it all
out and rework it.
Simply evaluate where you couldmake tweaks that will make a
big difference to your students.
What is the smallest change youcan make that's going to get
you the biggest outcomes?
When you can identify that,you're going to support your own
(15:06):
cognitive load and that of yourteam.
Sometimes we do need to tip itall out and start again, but if
we don't have to, why do it?
Implementing strong, explicitteaching, whether we're talking
literacy or any other curriculumarea, is not about one gigantic
thing done.
It's about a number of smallthings done consistently well.
(15:30):
And, on that note, happyteaching everyone.
I'll see you in the nextepisode.
Hello there, welcome to this episode of the Structured
Literacy Podcast.
My name is Jocelyn and I'mbringing you this episode from
Tasmania, the lands of thePalawa people.
It's really important that we,as teachers and leaders,
understand the why of what we'redoing in our lessons.
Learning about human brainarchitecture and how it works is
(00:21):
an integral part of that.
While understanding literacyand its different features and
structures is important, it'salso critical to understand how
we can maximise every moment wehave with students in the
classroom, regardless of thelessons we're teaching.
Today, I'm going to share aconcept with you that will help
(00:43):
you reflect on your lessonstructure and how you're
designing instruction to enablestudents to get maximum benefit.
The concept we're exploringtoday is called primacy and
recency.
This concept has been aroundsince the 1880s, when it was
first described by Germanresearcher Hermann Ebbinghaus.
(01:05):
Ebbinghaus's study resulted inthe development of concepts and
understandings we still usetoday, such as the forgetting
curve and the importance ofspacing during practice.
It's always amazing to me whenI hear these dates, 1880s! So
for over 140 years this researchhas been in existence and we
(01:27):
are just coming to learn aboutit now.
Well, I suppose it's betterlate than never, but it does
highlight how long change takes.
So what is primacy and recency?
Well, primacy and recency issomething that every teacher
should know about.
When students walk out of theclassroom, what do they remember
(01:49):
after your lessons?
To answer this question,cognitive science offers some
really fascinating insights, andhere's one of them: that
students are most likely torecall what you taught at the
beginning and the end of thelesson, and this knowledge has
powerful implications for how westructure our teaching.
(02:11):
The primacy effect is aboutremembering what happened at the
start of the lesson, and thisoccurs because information
presented first receives fullattention and is processed
deeply into long-term memory.
Think about it as the firstimpression, and we hear all the
time first impressions last.
(02:33):
The information presented atthe start of your lesson gets
prime mental real estate becauseit arrives when attention is
fresh and there isn'tcompetition from other content.
The recency effect is aboutinformation being presented last
having the second rung on theprime time ladder.
(02:57):
This happens because it's stillsitting in our working memory
and is easily retrievable.
It hasn't had time to fade yetand it hasn't been pushed aside
by subsequent learning.
Still top of mind when studentsleave the classroom.
What goes on in the middle?
I hear you asking.
Well, that's where informationoften gets lost, in what
(03:19):
cognitive scientists call theserial position effect, which is
a tendency to remember thethings that happened first and
the things that happened lastmuch better than things that
happened in the middle.
So what does this mean for usas teachers?
Well, primarily, it means thatthe beginning and the end of
(03:39):
your lesson are prime time oroptimal moments for introducing
crucial concepts, summarisingkey points or setting important
learning tasks.
We can then save the middleportion of our lesson for
practice, application andexploration of concepts that we
introduced during the first lotof prime time minutes, which is
(04:04):
at the start of the lesson.
By deliberately structuringlessons with primacy and recency
in mind, we can significantlyenhance what students remember.
One of the ways we can do thisis by breaking longer lessons
into shorter segments of about20 to 30 minutes in length, and
(04:25):
that's a very general number,but we need numbers to work with
, so let's go with that.
Each one of these shortersegments then has its own
beginning and ending, and we cansignal transitions between them
with some visual anchors, someparticular questions or some
transition tasks.
(04:47):
If you break your lesson intosmaller chunks, each with their
specific first and last parts,that transition time between
them only needs to be between 30and 60 seconds, where we can
have students stand up, sit down, change their perspective or
have a specific way to switchfrom one task to another.
(05:07):
We don't need a 40-minute brainbreak between these learning
episodes.
Frankly, I think sometimesbrain breaks are just a waste of
instructional time.
We just really need somethingthat signals to the brain that
we're changing activities.
And, of course, there aredecisions around this that are
specific to age group andcontext and cohort, so I don't
(05:29):
want to be making sweepingstatements that apply to
everybody.
But the goal here is tomaximise learning time.
So by working with students inthe way that their brains
actually work, we can make surethat we're spending the most
time possible on instruction,rather than stretching them out
(05:52):
until they're exhausted and theythen need the 40-minute brain
break.
So let's work smarter here, notharder.
Now, why am I sharing theseideas of primacy and recency
with you?
Well, it's because it's reallyeasy to misuse them.
We can get in our own way andour students' way, when it comes
to learning outcomes.
When we ask students todiscover something for
(06:16):
themselves, when we posequestions about things we
haven't taught them yet and weask them what they think it
could mean and, let's be honest,we're doing this all the time,
we are getting in our own wayand their own way, because we're
misusing the prime time.
(06:36):
So, for example, we might beteaching a new lesson on ratio
in maths.
We could be teaching aboutphotosynthesis in science, or
similes in English, it doesn'tmatter.
But instead of explicitlyteaching the concepts, we say "I
wonder what simile could mean?
Talk to your partner and see ifyou can come up with an idea.
Now, the students will come upwith all sorts of ideas, and the
(06:59):
things they think about firstin this lesson are the things
they're most likely to remember.
So when we ask students to justcome up with ideas and search
for answers, we increase thechance that the thing they will
remember will be wrong.
Another way we misuse prime timeis by just not getting to the
(07:21):
point of the lesson.
We might begin by saying todaywe're going to learn about
similes, but then we remember wehaven't marked the role, so we
stop and do that.
And then we remember oh, wehave to collect the homework.
Oh, and don't forget, we've gotan excursion coming up, so
we've got dates for that.
Oh, and if you've got yourpermission note, bring it to me
now.
And by the time we get around toexplaining the concept we want
(07:42):
to teach, we've used up theentire prime time window on
things that we don't need thechildren to remember about that
day's learning.
So they won't remember what wewanted them to, because by the
time we start to actually unpackthe concept, we're now in the
middle of the lesson, or whatcould be called the downtime.
So when we start teaching, weneed to continue teaching, which
(08:06):
means we need to be wellorganised so that we have
students' focus at the start ofthe lesson and ensure that they
get the most value from thatpart of instruction.
I can hear people asking oh,but how many minutes is the
prime time?
And there are some suggestionsof how long each section of a
lesson this primacy, downtimeand recency could last.
(08:28):
But it's important to note thatthese recommendations are more
expert suggestions rather thanbeing based on explicit
empirical evidence.
So here we're being evidenceinformed, not necessarily
evidence based, and there aretimes when that's just going to
happen.
David Sousa, in his book How theBrain Learns, which is now in
(08:50):
its sixth edition, suggests abreakdown of lesson percentages
of 20% primacy, 60% practice and20% recency, and I cannot
stress enough that this is asuggestion, not an example
validated by controlledexperimental research.
So please remember that this isa knowledgeable expert offering
(09:14):
guidance, not a hard and fastrule.
But what research does supportis the importance of allocating
dedicated time at the beginningand end of learning segments for
critical information.
Research does support the valueof practice time between these
segments, so connecting toinformation processing theory
(09:37):
and the importance of rehearsalin encoding new information into
short-term and then long-termmemory.
So we've got the primacy, theintroduction, the practice and
then the summing up bit at theend.
That practice is critical.
Research also supports thebenefit of breaking down longer
sessions into smaller segments,each with its own beginning,
(09:59):
practice and ending.
So if you have a 90 minuteblock of time, that is a very
long time for students to focuson just one thing.
However, if you break it downinto three 30 minute segments,
each one then has its ownprimacy, practice, recency
structure and we're notrequiring students to
(10:20):
concentrate for longer thanthey're actually able to.
So that self-regulation staminais a thing and yes, it can be
increased, but let's work withstudents where they're up to
right now.
Different learning contextsmight benefit from different
time allocations based onfactors like student age and
their developmental stage, justin general, as children.
(10:43):
It'll also depend on howcomplex the subject matter is,
how familiar the studentsalready are with the content,
the time of day and the overalllesson length.
No two classrooms or schoolsare exactly the same because no
two students are exactly thesame, and this is why it's
important for us to understandthe principles that make
(11:06):
learning effective, not try andfind fixed rules that we apply
in every single circumstance.
So let's think about somepractical reflection questions
that you can use to evaluate howyou're using the prime time
windows in your lessons.
Question number one are wereserving the first part of
(11:26):
lessons for the most criticalconcepts, vocabulary and skills
and teaching them explicitly, orare we asking students to think
about things we haven't taughtthem yet or discover something
through some sort of exploration?
This prime time learning windowis when students will most
effectively encode informationinto short-term memory, which we
(11:50):
then practice to get it intolong-term memory.
We really don't want to wasteit.
The second question is how arewe deliberately creating
transitions that signal shiftsbetween lesson segments?
Are we using brief activitychanges, short movement
opportunities of no more than aminute long and clear verbal
(12:12):
cues, or are we using valuableinstructional time for
unnecessary activities likerunning around the oval or
having a 25-minute fruit break?
Strategic transitions createmultiple beginnings and endings
within a lesson, allowing us totake advantage of primacy and
(12:32):
recency over a longer period.
Question three are we holdingspace to provide summaries at
the end of the lesson?
So this one is one that Ialways struggled with in the
classroom myself because Ididn't manage time well enough.
When you work to the clock andyou know how many minutes you
(12:54):
have for each part of the lesson, then you can hold the valuable
space at the end forconsolidation activities like
retrieval practice, conceptmapping or student summarising.
This recency period is oursecond high retention
opportunity and often our owninability to manage time means
(13:15):
we don't get to it.
So let's be intentional abouthow we're allocating time and
using time effectively.
Question four are we gettingstraight to the point of
instruction when a lesson begins?
How are we intentionally movinghousekeeping tasks like taking
attendance or distributingmaterials or making
announcements to other times?
(13:37):
We need to keep these thingsout of the prime time windows.
And the last reflectionquestion is what is the maximum
time our students canmeaningfully engage in learning?
Are we structuring our lessonsaccordingly?
If you know that your studentscan focus effectively for about
(14:00):
30 minutes, then createbeginning, middle, end segments
that add up to that length oftime.
If you've got a 90-minute block, then you now have the
opportunity for three learningsegments, each with their own
primacy, practice and recencystructure, rather than
stretching a single structureacross the entire period and
(14:23):
watching the children drop offone after another throughout
that time because they simplycan't maintain the cognitive
stamina for all of that time.
I really hope that thesestraightforward strategies help
you implement cognitive scienceprinciples without feeling like
you need to completely overhaulinstruction.
(14:44):
I'm not asking you to take theliteracy block and tip it all
out and rework it.
Simply evaluate where you couldmake tweaks that will make a
big difference to your students.
What is the smallest change youcan make that's going to get
you the biggest outcomes?
When you can identify that,you're going to support your own
(15:06):
cognitive load and that of yourteam.
Sometimes we do need to tip itall out and start again, but if
we don't have to, why do it?
Implementing strong, explicitteaching, whether we're talking
literacy or any other curriculumarea, is not about one gigantic
thing done.
It's about a number of smallthings done consistently well.
(15:30):
And, on that note, happyteaching everyone.
I'll see you in the nextepisode.
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