daily review homework

Bradford Academy Homework and Daily Review

“ Memory is the residue of thought ” Daniel T. Willingham

There are two types of homework at Bradford Academy. The Daily Review and subject homework.

Image from Rosenshine’s Principles in Action by Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli.

The purpose of Daily Review is to support the development of ‘fluency’ (recalling factual knowledge with ease to make the learning of new knowledge easier). Working (short term) memory has a limited capacity and overloading it reduces the effectiveness of teaching. If students have committed factual knowledge to their long term memory, it is easier to build on with new concepts and links. It also improves the success rate of learning and therefore builds students’ esteem. Examples of this factual knowledge are key vocabulary or terminology, times tables, key facts and dates etc.

Image by Oliver Cavliglioli – Willingham’s simple memory model.

This knowledge can be brought to the forefront of the working memory regularly through questioning and quizzing. This is what enables it to be retained in long term memory. When there is a time delay between re-visiting the knowledge, it allows it to be consolidated further. By weekly quizzing on knowledge that has been learned in previous weeks/months we can limit the amount of material that is forgotten.

Daily Review of knowledge is an expectation of all students across the school. Students have a Daily Review booklet that contains all of the knowledge to be learned each term. At the front of the booklet is a timetable that shows which part of the booklet should be learned each day. Each week there will be a quiz during form time on the knowledge learned so far. Students complete the learning using Look, Cover, Write, Check technique (see the website for a demonstration on how it is done). They should complete approximately 1 side of A4 each day for this work. This will take around 20-30mins each day. An added benefit to this approach is the building of routines and regular study worth ethic. Work will be checked, but not marked, by the form tutor each day. A detention will be issued for non-completion. Students can access a PDF version on our website here.

In addition to the Daily Review, subjects will set weekly/fortnightly homework depending on the frequency of the subject.

Guidance for Parents on Completing the Daily Review

Students work independently.

• Students read a small amount of information from their Daily Review booklet.
• They cover it with their hand/ paper/ pencil case/ book.
• They try to write it down accurately from memory.
• They check against their booklet and correct errors in green pen
• Repeat until they are able to write the information down accurately.
• Move on to the next piece of information.

The Testing Effect

Once your child has completed look cover write check please test them on what they have learned.

You can support your child to remember 50% more of what they have studied if you test them after they have revised.

This chart shows that you remember information better after a week if you study it and then are tested on it, rather than just studying it twice.

Year 7 – Term 2

Year 8 – term 2, year 9 – term 2, year 10 – term 2, year 11 – term 2.

Staff at all levels across the Academy feel genuinely supported and feel grateful to work in a high-trust environment where they will readily take risks. This impacts on the quality of learning and teaching thus enhancing student learning experiences.

University College London Institute of Education – Platinum Award report

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• ELEMENTARY TEACHING , MATH

Spiral Review Math Activities, Tips & Ideas for Elementary Teachers in 2024

Before I get into what spiral review math is and how to implement it in your elementary classroom, let’s go back in time for a minute…

SCREEEEEEEECH!!! That’s the sound heard in many classrooms as teachers are forced to hit the brakes on teaching. No more engaging lessons and creative activities. Unfortunately, it’s time to spend WEEKS preparing for whatever test their state or district has decided their students must take.

This was the problem I faced each year in my third grade classroom. It was also something I was hearing was an issue in classrooms all over the country. 

To make things worse, I found that students weren’t retaining their learning. My students would demonstrate proficiency in a skill or concept at the time it was formally taught. However, they would often show misconceptions when we would review for the standardized tests in the spring. This was true for both math and ELA.

I desperately needed a solution and am thrilled to say I found one: SPIRAL REVIEW!

I created and used both a spiral review math and ELA resource. You can learn more about these below!

This blog post will answer the following questions:

• What is the spiral learning method?
• Why is spiral review important?
• What is spiral review math?
• What is a spiral review?
• When can I implement spiral review during the school day?
• How do I implement spiral review in my classroom?
• What is a spiral math curriculum?
• How do I do a spiral mathematics curriculum?

What is Spiral Review?

Spiral review is the idea that, after introducing and teaching a foundational concept or skill, students continue to practice it regularly throughout the school year in order to maintain what they have learned.  It is also known as the spiral learning method, spiral approach or spiral instruction . It is an integral part of every 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classroom.

Why is Spiral Review Important?

Spiral review is important because of the following reasons:

• Spiral review gives students the opportunity to practice key concepts and skills regularly, which helps them maintain foundational skills throughout the school year that they need for higher level learning opportunities.
• If a student does not achieve proficiency with a concept or skill when it is first taught, they have many more opportunities to strengthen their understanding and reach mastery.
• Spiral review empowers teachers to quickly assess students to see where they are currently performing. Then teachers can use this information to provide purposeful data-driven instruction that meets the individual needs of her students. 
• It promotes confidence amongst students because they are familiar with the content.
• Math spiral review serves as the perfect center, because students can work on it independently.
• It reduces the amount of class time required for test prep, since students get continued practice throughout the school year.

What is Spiral Review Math?

Spiral review math is the concept of using spiral review for math concepts and skills. This math spiral approach can be done through the format of whole group instruction, small group instruction, partner work, independent practice, morning work, or homework. Spiral math offers students the regular opportunity to practice and reinforce previously-taught math concepts and skills.

What is a Spiral Review Activity?

A spiral review is an activity that invites students to practice previously-taught concepts and skills. Spiral activities can take many different forms. For example, a spiral learning activity can look like a worksheet, an iPad app, an interactive white board lesson, hands-on learning experience, morning work task, small group lesson, whole group lesson, or homework assignment.

5 Ideas for Using Spiral Review in Your Classroom

Here are 5 ways you can implement spiral review learning in your classroom:

1. Morning Work

Consider setting up a daily routine in your classroom where your students work on a spiral review task right after they finish unpacking their things. It’s a quiet independent activity that helps students start the day on the right foot (while you take attendance, lunch count, and check for notes without interruptions).

2. Calendar Time

Perhaps you could implement a spiral review routine during your calendar time, which lends itself especially well to reviewing math skills.

3. Small Group Instruction

Think about starting the first 2 or last 2 minutes of your guided reading or guided math group with a quick review to help students get settled after a transition and get the practice they need.

Whether it is part of your Daily 5, Daily 3, math workshop rotations, or something else – use your centers to reinforce and provide practice opportunities to your students through fun and engaging games or other printable resources.

5. Homework

Send home a spiral review worksheet each night so students get the practice they need. Both parents and students love consistent homework, because it takes all of the guesswork out of it!

5 Tips for Implementing Spiral Review in Your Classroom

Here are 5 tips for implementing spiral review learning:

• Incorporate content area word walls into your classroom design. Use these boards to play games which will enable your students to regularly access important vocabulary and will help them to internalize it.
• Designate a container to house any pages you had copied during a unit and planned to have your students complete, but didn’t get around to doing. Use these pages when you have spare minutes to fill, as independent work during math workshop, or when you are planning for a substitute teacher.
• Have your students design games as a culminating project to a unit. Make these games available throughout the remainder of the year for additional practice. As an added benefit, this is a fabulous activity for your students seeking enrichment and early finishers.
• As you find online games that are great for reinforcing specific concepts, write them down on popsicle sticks and place them into a cup. Start or end your time in the computer lab by randomly picking a stick and having your students spend some time playing that game.
• If you are teaching a lesson and are interrupted by the phone or a visitor, instruct your students to “turn and talk” to a neighbor about everything they remember about (fill in the blank). You’ll want to practice this a few times, but once the expectations are established it’ll be a great way to make productive use of time that would otherwise be wasted.

What is a Spiral Math Curriculum?

A spiral math curriculum is a curriculum where math concepts and skills are repeatedly revisited throughout the school year. A formal curriculum program that uses this spiral approach is EveryDay Math. Instead of teaching a focused unit on a given topic, a curriculum like EveryDay Math cycles through a series of concepts and skills throughout a period of time.

Some teachers report that this spiral review math method has some weaknesses. For example, teachers have said that some of their students are not able to master concepts and skills because as soon as they start to get it, a spiral curriculum has them jump to the next topic. An additional complaint is that their instruction sometimes feels jumbled and it’s hard to get into a rhythm. 

So what do we do? 

We know that spiral review math is important, but we also can understand how some students, especially those with special needs and those who speak English as a second language, can struggle with jumping from one topic to the next. Luckily, there’s good news!

You can utilize the spiral math curriculum philosophy without committing to it fully. The Guided Math Workshop approach lets you do just that! Read the next section for a specific example for how to implement spiral math curriculum using the Guided Math Workshop framework.

How do you do a Spiral Math Curriculum?

As I mentioned in the section above, you can implement a spiral math curriculum as a component of your math block using the Guided Math Workshop framework. Specifically, math spiral review doesn’t have to be the core of your instruction, rather just one part of it.

If you are new to Guided Math Workshop, then here’s a quick overview of the structure of the math block. There is a mini lesson, followed by rotations, and then a closing. There are four rotations that are presented using the acronym MATH. M stands for math facts. A stands for at your seat. T stands for teacher’s choice. H stands for hands on.

Example of How to Implement Spiral Review Curriculum

Let’s use a third grade unit on fractions as an example.

Towards the beginning of the unit, the mini lesson is watching a BrainPop video on fractions. The M center is students practicing math facts using the Xtra Math app on iPads. At the A center, we’ll see students practicing the 1st and 2nd grade standards related to fractions (partitioning shapes into equal shares/parts). Another option is having students practice the concepts and skills from the previous unit through a review packet. The T center is a differentiated guided math lesson on fractions based on student performance on the unit’s pre-assessment. Instruction would look differently for each group. The H center involves students practicing the 1st and 2nd grade standards related to fractions by partitioning play dough into equal shares and drawing pictures of their creations. Finally, the closing is a quick formative assessment where students share one thing they learned about fractions that day.

In this example, you can see that students learned through a spiral approach during the M, A, and H center. The Guided Math Workshop framework provides focused instruction, while also giving students the opportunity to practice previously-taught concepts and skills. This spiral curriculum method gives you the best of both worlds.

Spiral Review Math Resources

Check out the spiral review math resources for your grade level below.

Math Resources for 1st-5th Grade Teachers

If you need printable and digital math resources for your classroom, then check out my time and money-saving math collections below!

Try a Collection of our Math Resources for Free!

We hope this information about spiral review math is helpful and would love for you to try these math resources with your students (including a math spiral review resource). They offer elementary students opportunities to practice grade level concepts and skills in fun and engaging ways. You can download worksheets specific to your grade level (along with lots of other math freebies) in our free printable math resources bundle using this link: free printable math activities for elementary teachers .

Check out these other math resources!

• 1st Grade Math Resources
• 2nd Grade Math Resources
• 3rd Grade Math Resources
• 4th Grade Math Resources
• 5th Grade Math Resources

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The Benefits of Daily Math Review in the Classroom

Education resources › Blog › 5 things to do during your daily review, according to Rosenshine

5 things to do during your daily review, according to Rosenshine

• Retrieval Practice
• Rosenshine’s Principles

Written by the InnerDrive team | Edited by Bradley Busch

Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction  are a huge area of interest in education at the moment, thanks to all the practical implications and impact they can have for teachers and students alike.

The first of these principles suggests that lessons should begin with a daily review of previous learning, which can improve knowledge of past information and also lead to easier recall. Daily reviewing of old information can also facilitate the learning of new and related information.

But how can you actually do this in the classroom? Here are 5 ways you can prompt daily reviewing…

What are Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction?

But first, a quick recap. Rosenshine developed his  10 Principles of Instruction  based on research from three main areas:

• Cognitive Science , which focuses on how the brain acquires new information.
• Classroom practices , which look at the most effective teaching strategies that lead to high student achievement.
• Cognitive support , which researches which instructional procedures, such as talking out loud and scaffolding, have the best outcome on student achievement.

Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are being implemented by teachers across all disciplines and education levels. They are bridging the gap between education and research, in a way that we can ensure that applying his principles in the classroom will have a positive effect on students.

How to facilitate daily review

Rosenshine’s first Principle is to “review learning at the start of the lesson”. This is because research shows that our  working memory  is small and easily overloaded, which means that students are likely to have forgotten new information from the last lesson and would struggle to recall it without a review.

We know that daily reviewing is important not only to remember information, but also to learn new information. We do this by building on what we already know, so daily reviewing will help create a solid foundation that your students can build upon during the rest of the lesson.

When it comes to how to review learning with your students, you have some choice.  Rosenshine himself suggested  five strategies you could use…

1. Correct homework

Correcting homework tasks during class time can encourage students to review what they have learned well or not so well. Looking over mistakes they made allows students to evaluate how well they are learning. This develops their  metacognitive skills  and helps them identify the areas of knowledge that they need to go over.

2. Review concepts and skills used in the homework  

Although correcting homework is useful to pinpoint specifically which answers were wrong and which were correct, reviewing which overarching concepts and skills used in the homework is also important.

This allows students to recognise whether the mistakes they are making on the homework tasks are one-off mistakes or whether they have misunderstood a concept or skill.

3. Ask students to identify points of difficulty  

Finding out where your students struggled helps identify which skills need more practice, and which information needs to be reviewed.

This gives you the opportunity to re-explain concepts your students found difficult before it becomes a bigger problem – it can consolidate their learning, especially if the lesson relies on previously-explored concepts.

4. Review material where students made errors  

Mistakes are not inherently bad – they are a signal to students that they have not fully grasped a particular concept or an idea. Sometimes  failure can help students to develop resilience, motivation and determination .

Identify the errors your students made, and use it to prompt what to review. This will help you ensure that they understand necessary information and will learn new information more easily.

5. Review material that needs overlearning  

Overlearning is the idea that certain skills can become automatic, freeing our working memory capacity. Overlearning and becoming experts in certain basic skills can form the foundation for future learning.

Reviewing material that needs overlearning can emphasise the importance of mastering these skills and lead to academic success not only in the present, but also in the future. So, even if your students fully understand a concept and make very few mistakes with it, sometimes, it may be worth reviewing it again and again to make it “second nature”.

Final thoughts

Rosenshine’s first Principle of Instruction  is all about reviewing material. Conducting a daily review for just a few minutes before beginning a lesson has been shown to improve academic performance by relieving some of our cognitive load and ensuring students aren’t basing their future learning on mistakes.

Hopefully, this blog has given some good food for thought on how to do so, but if you want to become an expert in Rosenshine’s Principles and implementing them in the classroom, why not have a look at our  Rosenshine’s Principles teacher CPD workshops ?

About the editor

Bradley Busch

Bradley Busch is a Chartered Psychologist and a leading expert on illuminating Cognitive Science research in education. As Director at InnerDrive, his work focuses on translating complex psychological research in a way that is accessible and helpful. He has delivered thousands of workshops for educators and students, helping improve how they think, learn and perform. Bradley is also a prolific writer: he co-authored four books including Teaching & Learning Illuminated and The Science of Learning , as well as regularly featuring in publications such as The Guardian and The Telegraph.

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Recommended Rosenshine’s Principles reads

5 reasons why you should present material in small steps

Why daily, weekly and monthly reviews matter

4 questions to check students’ knowledge and understanding

What is the most important of Rosenshine’s Principles?

A coach’s guide to Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction

Rosenshine’s 5 tips for engaging students with questions

6 questions Rosenshine suggested you ask your students

The Cognitive Science behind Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction

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Ochre Maths F-6 Australian Curriculum Daily Review – Build your own Daily Review with Topic Decks 31 January

31 Jan 2024

We have now made available a set of Topic Decks for Years F-6 maths for teachers to more easily build their own Daily Review decks, to meet the individual needs of their classes and students. Choose to build in more practice in those areas where your students need additional rehearsal to reach mastery. Topic decks include all the Daily Review slides for a full year for each topic for all years F-6.

Topic 1 – Whole Number Topic 2 – Part Whole & Addition and Subtraction Topic 3 – Multiplication and Division Topic 4 – Fractions Topic 5 – Decimals Topic 6 – Money Topic 7 – Measurement Topic 8 – Time Topic 9 – Shape, Position and Angle Topic 10 – Data, Probability and Chance

We have also released a suggested schedule for Daily Review which supports a lesson progression which is aligned to that used in Ochre Maths Primary Curriculum Maps. This can help teachers build their own Daily Review Decks to support implementation of the full suite of Ochre primary maths materials.

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Upper Elementary Teaching Blog

How To Make Spiral Review Work for You and Your Students

Spiral review is truly the most powerful thing I do in my classroom to help my students master skills, retain skills, and make connections between the topics they are learning. In this post, I will break down all the ways I make spiral review work for me to help it work for you and your students.

Why Use Spiral Review?

Recently, I had a conversation with a teacher about pacing. She was asking me how I was able to get all of my standards taught every year, even with struggling students. My initial thought was, “I just do it.” But, I realized that was not helpful, so I thought a bit more about what made me okay with moving through the standards and knowing that my students would be okay. I finally realized it was spiral reviewing in ALL subjects.

By using spiral review, I am able to confidently move on after teaching a standard that my students still need more practice with. I know I will hit that standard again and again throughout the year. And sometimes coming back to a difficult standard two weeks or two months later makes all of the difference.

Spiral review also helps the students retain all the information they have learned form week to week and month to month. They learn to make connections and store information for later use.

Read on to learn some ways to make spiral review the most effective it can be for all of your students.

How to Make Spiral Review Work for Your Class

1. make sure it is a true review..

Here are some ways to ensure it is a true review:

1.) Create it yourself based on what you know your students have been taught and what you know they need to review.

2.) Use domain-specific reviews after you have taught a specific domain. For example, I created four weeks’ worth of review for the Number and Operations: Base Ten domain of the 5th Grade Common Core standards. Each standard is reviewed daily, and then I also have a Friday assessment that aligns perfectly with the review.  I wait until after I have taught all seven standards, and then the next four weeks, we use this for our spiral review.

You can see this spiral review and assessment (it includes an editable version!) by clicking here.  Links to the Fraction Domain and Measurement Domain are in the description (bundle coming soon!).

3.) Use skill-specific reviews for the big skills in your curriculum. I use these “of the day” math review printables regularly to spiral some of our key math skills. The versatility of these printables allows me to use them for math centers, morning work, homework, independent work, or even during a small group re-teaching lesson.

Here are some examples of the ones I use and love:

Decimal of the Day ( see it in my TeachersPayTeachers store by clicking here ):

Area of the Day ( see it in my TeachersPayTeachers store by clicking here ):

Number of the Day ( see it in my TeachersPayTeachers store by clicking here ):

Click here to see all of my “Of the Day” printables, including FOUR free sets!

2. Ensure your students  have an entry point to all of the problems or a reference to use.

Here are some ways to help with this:

1.) Have anchor charts posted or available for reference.

2.) Create interactive student notebooks that serve as references for your students.

I have this expectation in my room:

If you are working on review, then your interactive notebook is out on your desk ready for if/when you need it.

3.) Differentiate as needed. This doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. You can simply cross out a problem or two, write in a quick note or tip, or even pull a small group to do the review together.

3. Think beyond morning work and homework.

Spiral review can (and should, in many cases) also be incorporated in:

• math centers
• reading centers
• small group lessons
• guided reading lessons (more about how I organize this in Tip #4)

Definitely think outside the box and look for opportunities in your schedule and instruction to regularly work in spiral review.

4. Stay organized.

Being organized will help ensure you consistently review some of your power standards (standards that are assessed more, standards that your students struggle with, or standards that really lay the foundation for other skills).

Here is one *easy* way I ensure I regularly spiral my reading standards through guided reading lessons.

I use these forms (one for literature and one for informational) to keep track of when we discuss our reading standards through our guided reading groups. I have five dates for each standard because it was nice and even that way, but I definitely review some skills more than others. And some are embedded in every lesson (word meanings for example), but I mark the date for times when I really focus on that skill.

Click here to download the Guided Reading Standards Tracking form.

Here is another form that I use after giving unit or quarterly assessments. With this form, I am able to keep track of which standards need to be spiraled after large assessments (and which need to be re-taught).

Click here to learn more about my data tracking forms and grab this form, as well as several others.

5. Not just for math!

Spiral review and math just seem to go hand-in-hand. However, I use spiral review in all content areas. Here is how:

Science and Social Studies: My homework is the spiral review. I just type up and give 2-3 questions each day, and we quickly go over them before instruction. Tip: I use interactive notebooks in my classroom, so when I am making my homework, I grab my INB and type my questions directly from there. This way I know all of my students have the answer if they don’t automatically recall it.

In addition to using homework to spiral review science and social studies, I also regularly fill extra time and transitions with questions from previous lessons in science and social studies. I typically start every lesson with a quick review from recent lessons or lessons that at not so recent to keep them fresh.

Reading : I spiral my reading standards two ways. First, I spiral my reading standards through guided reading, as I mentioned above. I use the checklist I mentioned in Tip #4 to ensure I am consistently bringing up the standards throughout the year as they fit with our reading books.

The other way that I spiral my reading standards is through my reading review pages . I have fiction and informational reading review printables that review the “big” reading skills (theme, point of view, and text structures, to name a few). I usually use 1-2 weeks after we have learned a skill, and then save the other two weeks for later on in the year to bring those skills back up. This can be used for homework, reading practice, small group instruction, daily reading review, and even literacy centers.

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4th and 5th Grade Reading Review

Language : I do my language review a bit differently, since my language instruction time is so limited. I spiral review my language through language centers once a week and then 20 days before my state assessment ( I use this resource to spiral my standards ). Click here to see the language centers I use to consistently practice and review 5th grade language skills.

Other grammar needs that are not addressed in my language standards are regularly spiraled through writing workshop via writing mini-lessons, writing conferences, and revising and editing lessons.

6. Make sure all students have ample time to complete the review.

This was a mistake that I made for a couple of years because I was so focused on staying on schedule and getting everything in. I realized I wasn’t allowing my reluctant students time to actually complete the review, and they were definitely taking advantage of that. They knew that I would go ahead and start going over review with or without them. Here is what I do now:

• Review is started as homework the night before or immediately when we start a new subject, and I teach my reluctant students that if they think they will not have time to get it done in the 10-15 minutes I give them, then they need to get a jump start on it (by taking it home, starting it when they finish another task, or just hustling to get started). Note: Any students who legitimately struggle (without or without an IEP) are given fewer problems to complete.
• Teach the students how to skip a tricky or time-consuming one to get the most done in the time given. This doubles as a good test prep strategy, too.
• Teach the students how to use their resources to complete the review.
• While I am circulating, I zone in on my struggling or reluctant students and ensure they have entry points for the problems, are using their resources, or are skipping ones they truly need help on.

Here are how I define the terms used in this section:

Struggling Students : Students who legitimately struggle with the skill, either because of a learning disability or another issue.

Reluctant Students : Students who are fully capable of completing grade level work but don’t have the drive, grit, or perseverance to get the work done quickly.

7. Review previous grade level standards when you get to related grade level standards.

Now, this may not work for every teacher and every student, but I want to share a different perspective with you. A lot of 5th grade teachers have their first month’s review be 4th grade skills, and so do I, but I do it a bit differently.

I don’t review all of the fourth grade standards at once in one fell swoop. At the beginning of the year, I review place value, multiplication, division, and word problems, because those are closely related to the standards I will be teaching first. Then, right before we start decimals, I throw in the 4th grade decimal skills as review. I do the same for fractions, measurement, and geometry.

I have found this to be much more effective because it is related to my content, and it is reviewing the skills they will directly need for the next few weeks’ lessons. This helps make the connection between the review and the current learning.

How do you use spiral review in your classroom? Do you have any tips to share to maximizing the effectiveness of review? Let us know in the comments!

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Reader interactions.

March 28, 2018 at 9:25 pm

Hi Jennifer, I am loving your blog! I was just wondering when you say you use Language Review once per week, would you put one of each activity from your Language Bundle and have groups all working on Language Centers once per week? I am new to fifth grade and working on centers and guided reading. I was thinking of including a Language Center in my rotation but was just looking to see how you do this. Thanks for all of the helpful info here!!

November 8, 2018 at 4:21 pm

I absolutely love the worksheets that are titled, Math Review. I am in need of a 4th and 5th grade workbook that I can you with the children I tutor. I have looked all over your website and can find everything but the Math Review sheets. Please help and I’d love to order them asap.

Thank you so much!

Lori Taylor

November 8, 2018 at 4:23 pm

I absolutely love the worksheets that are titled, Math Review. I am in need of a 4th and 5th grade workbook that I can you with the children I tutor. I have looked all over your website and can find everything but the Math Review sheets. Please help and I’d love to order them asap. They’re wonderful!

Example: Worksheet 1 has Algebraic Thinking, Base Ten Numbers, Fractions, Measurement and Data and Geometry.

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Welcome Friends!

I’m Jennifer Findley: a teacher, mother, and avid reader. I believe that with the right resources, mindset, and strategies, all students can achieve at high levels and learn to love learning. My goal is to provide resources and strategies to inspire you and help make this belief a reality for your students.

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What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much.

Many teachers and parents believe that homework helps students build study skills and review concepts learned in class. Others see homework as disruptive and unnecessary, leading to burnout and turning kids off to school. Decades of research show that the issue is more nuanced and complex than most people think: Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.

The National PTA and the National Education Association support the “ 10-minute homework guideline ”—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students’ needs, not the amount of time spent on it.

The guideline doesn’t account for students who may need to spend more—or less—time on assignments. In class, teachers can make adjustments to support struggling students, but at home, an assignment that takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another twice as much time—often for reasons beyond their control. And homework can widen the achievement gap, putting students from low-income households and students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage.

However, the 10-minute guideline is useful in setting a limit: When kids spend too much time on homework, there are real consequences to consider.

Small Benefits for Elementary Students

As young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal. And young students often don’t have the study skills to benefit fully from homework, so it may be a poor use of time (Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). A more effective activity may be nightly reading, especially if parents are involved. The benefits of reading are clear: If students aren’t proficient readers by the end of third grade, they’re less likely to succeed academically and graduate from high school (Fiester, 2013 ).

For second-grade teacher Jacqueline Fiorentino, the minor benefits of homework did not outweigh the potential drawback of turning young children against school at an early age, so she experimented with dropping mandatory homework. “Something surprising happened: They started doing more work at home,” Fiorentino writes . “This inspiring group of 8-year-olds used their newfound free time to explore subjects and topics of interest to them.” She encouraged her students to read at home and offered optional homework to extend classroom lessons and help them review material.

Moderate Benefits for Middle School Students

As students mature and develop the study skills necessary to delve deeply into a topic—and to retain what they learn—they also benefit more from homework. Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Recent research also shows that online math homework, which can be designed to adapt to students’ levels of understanding, can significantly boost test scores (Roschelle et al., 2016 ).

There are risks to assigning too much, however: A 2015 study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90 to 100 minutes of daily homework, their math and science test scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015 ). Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. The researchers recommend that “homework should present a certain level of challenge or difficulty, without being so challenging that it discourages effort.” Teachers should avoid low-effort, repetitive assignments, and assign homework “with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-directed learning.”

In other words, it’s the quality of homework that matters, not the quantity. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :

• How long will it take to complete?
• Have all learners been considered?
• Will an assignment encourage future success?
• Will an assignment place material in a context the classroom cannot?
• Does an assignment offer support when a teacher is not there?

More Benefits for High School Students, but Risks as Well

By the time they reach high school, students should be well on their way to becoming independent learners, so homework does provide a boost to learning at this age, as long as it isn’t overwhelming (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends. A 2013 study found that high school students can experience serious mental and physical health problems, from higher stress levels to sleep deprivation, when assigned too much homework (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013 ).

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school. They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support (OECD, 2014 ). In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. It may seem reasonable to assign 30 minutes of daily homework, but across six subjects, that’s three hours—far above a reasonable amount even for a high school senior. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. He suggests that teachers work together to develop a school-wide homework policy and make it a key topic of back-to-school night and the first parent-teacher conferences of the school year.

Parents Play a Key Role

Homework can be a powerful tool to help parents become more involved in their child’s learning (Walker et al., 2004 ). It can provide insights into a child’s strengths and interests, and can also encourage conversations about a child’s life at school. If a parent has positive attitudes toward homework, their children are more likely to share those same values, promoting academic success.

But it’s also possible for parents to be overbearing, putting too much emphasis on test scores or grades, which can be disruptive for children (Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2015 ). Parents should avoid being overly intrusive or controlling—students report feeling less motivated to learn when they don’t have enough space and autonomy to do their homework (Orkin, May, & Wolf, 2017 ; Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008 ; Silinskas & Kikas, 2017 ). So while homework can encourage parents to be more involved with their kids, it’s important to not make it a source of conflict.

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Daily Math Review Worksheets - Level C (3rd Grade)

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Reading Skill Review

By Mary Montero

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I don’t know about you, but I absolutely love coming back to my classroom in January.  By this point in the year, our routines are solid, and it is a great time to really dig in to content. It’s also the perfect time to incorporate reading skill review.

By second semester, I have usually taught most of the reading skills in isolation, so this is the point in the year when I can really dig in deep and apply those skills to our novels. (You can read more about when and how I teach reading skills in this blog post .)

Even though second semester is always full of novel study, I still find that my students need a bit of review about all those different skills that we have worked on, especially with state testing coming up. I have blogged many times before about how I review reading comprehension, and I’ll link to those posts at the bottom of this post. But today, I have a couple of new ideas for you!

Reading Skill Review Sort

While I explicitly teach all of our reading skills and we review them at length, there is something to be said about the students knowing exactly what each of the reading skills is asking them to do. I cringe when I see students struggling on tests because they can’t remember the difference between a text feature and text structure or what exactly they are looking for when prompted for a theme vs. a main idea.

This year, I created a fun review activity to help my students revisit all of the different reading skills.

With this little reading skill review game, the students have to find the definition for the reading skill AND match the key word/examples to the reading skill. It’s a fun, quick way to review all of these different ideas with students! I like to use this type of activity in a small group setting so that we can discuss the different definitions and key words.

I printed the two boards out and laminated them so that I could use them with multiple groups. Then, I printed the definitions on one color and the Key Word/Samples on another color. I cut Velcro squares in half and put them on the boards and the backs of the definition/samples. Super easy!

You can grab your FREE sort by signing up for my newsletter below. If you already subscribe to my newsletter, enter your email address, and you’ll receive the freebie in your inbox!

Reading Skill of the Day: Daily Practice is Essential!

Year after year, I have searched and searched for a great way to incorporate a daily review of all of these skills. I never found anything that fit the bill and was super engaging for my students. Most of what I found looked the same as what I already had– long passages followed by multiple choice questions or open-ended answers. So, I decided to create it this year, and I’m so tickled with how it came out!! Introducing… the Reading Skill of the Day Weekly Journal !

I began by looking at all of the different reading skills I needed to incorporate… I knew that Main Idea and Inference were skills that I wanted to cover every single week, so Main Idea Monday and Inference Wednesday were born! The rest of the skills (and the sequence in which they appear in the resource) can be seen in the calendar below.

Each week covers a new skill in a fun and engaging way for students. The variation in skill practice allows them to see the skills differently and get oodles of valuable reading practice. Best of all, almost all of the tasks can be completed in five minutes or less, making this a super easy resource to incorporate into your literacy block.

Each week also includes a bonus activity for your early finishers and as another learning engagement to keep your kiddos excited about reading!

There are twenty weeks total, and you can use them in so many ways. You can bind or staple them all together, put them in a folder or binder, or distribute a single page (front and back) each week. Here are a few ways you can use the Daily Reading Skill Review journal:

• Morning Work
• Literacy Block Warm Up
• Small Group Review
• Whole Class Daily Review
• Daily Homework
• Intervention
• …and so much more!

If you’d like to see even more about this journal, please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store here !

Weekly Reading Quick Checks

To go with Reading Skill of the Day, you can easily assess 17 key reading skills with this rigorous and engaging weekly reading skill review resource . Each week reviews main Idea, inference and at least two critical more reading skills. Students will read one fiction and one informational text each week and complete accompanying tasks. That means there is a total of  80 passages included  and a  full 40 weeks of content !

It’s the perfect  companion to the  Reading Skill of the Day Weekly Journal   to be used as accompanying homework OR as an end of the week quiz on Fridays.  It follows the same scope/sequence as the weekly journal and reviews the same skills as the journal each week.   HOWEVER ,  the resource also stands alone as a set of weekly reading passages that can be used as weekly reading quizzes, weekly reading homework, a quick reading assessment, and more! 

Literacy Skill of the Week

Literacy Skill of the Week is another yearlong spiral review resource that builds literacy skills in a way that’s FUN for students and EASY to prep! It’s a monthly resource to teach and review essential reading, writing, and grammar skills in fourth and fifth grades. While each month’s passage and story topics revolve loosely around the given season, most passages and stories can be used throughout the year for extra practice.

This bundle includes 12 months of original, high-interest reading passages with a heavy focus on a specific skill each week.  Each month, two texts are fiction, and two are informational. Each original text includes FIVE days of reading tasks for a total of 20 days worth of high-quality tasks in each month!

• Day One – Read, annotate, and evaluate a text
• Day Two – Graphic organizer that focuses on the skill of the week
• Day Three – Using pictures to teach and review the reading skill
• Day Four – Read and respond questions
• Day Five – Writing prompts

You can use any combination of days to fit your needs. Each month has one week that focuses on reading, writing, figurative language, or grammar skills. Once a skill has been introduced, it will be reviewed periodically throughout subsequent months and weeks as well. The sheets are perfect for:

• Weekly instruction or practice
• Weekly homework
• Center work
• Morning work
• Spiral Review

Using Pictures to Teach: Free Winter Version

Are you looking for even more creative ways to review reading skills? Using Pictures to Teach Reading Skills is the perfect companion to Reading Skill of the Day! Try out my FREE winter-themed version (which can be used any time of year) of Using Pictures to Teach Reading Skills!

You can get this for FREE when you subscribe to my Teaching With a Mountain View Newsletter! This is a newsletter subscriber EXCLUSIVE freebie and you can’t access this content anywhere else! It’s easy, and I promise to never send you any spam! Sign up below and you will immediately receive an email with your freebie! Just enter your name and email address and click, “Get my Freebie!

Mary Montero

I’m so glad you are here. I’m a current gifted and talented teacher in a small town in Colorado, and I’ve been in education since 2009. My passion (other than my family and cookies) is for making teachers’ lives easier and classrooms more engaging.

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FREE 5th Grade Daily Math Spiral Review

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Home » Blog Posts » ELA » 3rd Grade Spiral Literacy Practice

3rd Grade Spiral Literacy Practice

Do you have third graders who are struggling with reading? There are so many literacy skills related to reading success for Grade 3 students! This post gives practical tips on the do’s and don’t of using 3rd Grade spiral literacy practice in your classroom for all students. Get ready to help your third graders grow stronger with reading.

Plus, you can grab some FREE 3rd Grade literacy printables that can be used with any reading curriculum.

*This post may contain affiliate links to Amazon for your convenience. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases, which do not cost any extra for you. Please see the  full disclosure here . *

What is Spiral Review?

Third graders need to develop several skills to become proficient readers.

The main categories for these reading skills are:

• Vocabulary and Word Recognition
• Comprehension

Even though many of these skills should be mastered in 1st and 2nd grade, upper elementary teachers must be prepared when they aren’t.

This is where spiraled review comes to the rescue!

3rd grade spiral literacy practice allows students to have on-going review to target necessary reading skills.

When you visualize a spiral 🌀 , it shows an image going round and round. This depiction also summarizes how students get on-going practice with literacy concepts they have already learned.

3rd Grade Spiral Literacy Practice Gone Wrong!

Although this sounds like a great way to help struggling readers , it has some potential downsides.

First off, using spiraled literacy should not feel like daily, monotonous drill practice.

Schools that require a certain amount of spiraled review each day run the risk of focusing more on time rather than quality of time spent.

In addition to this, spiral literacy practice benefits all third graders!

Guided reading groups for intervention practice give attention to the kids that need it most.

However, all Grade 3 kids need to retain the reading growth they have already achieved.

This allows them to transition smoothly from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.”

And finally, spiral review goes wrong when it lasts longer than 10-15 minutes per session. Unless you are using a game-style activity, students will burn out from daily lengthy worksheet practice.

Therefore, Keep–It–Simple–Sweetie! 💋 (K.I.S.S)

Now, let’s dive deeper into ways you can effectively implement spiraled activities into your 3rd grade classroom.

Incorporate Spiral Review into Your Morning Routine

The most practical way to hit the ground running with review happens at the beginning of each school day.

Once you’ve spent time community-building with students for social-emotional connection, you can assign quick 3rd grade spiral literacy practice as morning work.

An example of this would be these 3rd Grade Literacy Builder Worksheets . They can be used with any reading curriculum, and here are some of the skills they focus on:

• Phonics review
• Spelling rules
• Rhyming words
• Defining words in context
• Finding the main idea
• Inferencing
• Poetry practice
• Synonyms & Antonyms
• Context clues…AND MORE!

Using activities specifically designed for spiral review ensures that third graders consistently revisit much needed reading and language concepts.

Plus, having worksheets that require no extra prep means you get to save time on lesson planning!

Not only this, but each worksheet has up to 5 standards-packed literacy review sections that can be completed quickly.

Include Hands-On Literacy Activities

The second thing for you to know about 3rd grade spiral literacy activities is that they can be hands-on.

Worksheets offer interesting and needed review opportunities. However, spiral review includes engaging tactile work also.

For instance, identifying homonyms in sentences influences comprehension in a major way.

3rd Grade readers need on-going exercises to tell the difference between homophones and homographs, along with knowing what the different words mean.

So, you can give students a homophone matching card game or a homophones goldfish game for additional practice.

A spiral language review like this works well as a 3rd grade literacy center or word work game that the entire class completes together.

But How Can Games Be Spiraled Review?

If you are used to spiraled literacy review in the form of worksheets, it can be challenging to embrace game-based learning as rigorous review.

Taking the homophones game ideas from above; make it an on-going monthly exercise that aligns to the season.

This does two important things for students:

• Allow them to revisit identifying and applying homophones.
• Makes it extra interesting since it relates to the season or time of year.

But don’t think you only have to do this with homophones and homographs!

Most reading, language, or grammar skills also work as hands-on 3rd grade spiral literacy practice.

Not only that, but combining hands-on activities with 3rd grade ELA worksheets packs a combo punch of goodness for your kiddos!

Assign Literacy Homework that Offers Spiral Practice

Does spiraled homework lead to academic success for students? This big question inspired Duke Professor Harris Cooper to conduct studies in order to find the answer.

And the results? YES, it does.

However, there was one major caveat to these results: the amount of time spent on homework needs to be appropriate based on age and grade level.

Grade 3 students should not have more than 20-30 minutes of homework.

Due to this, I strongly recommend teachers use spiral literacy homework that can be completed around 10 minutes a few nights per week.

This additional practice gives Grade 3 students that small extra boost towards reading success.

Step-by-Step Instructions on How to Introduce Spiraled Literacy Review to Students

Now that we’ve looked at ways to implement 3rd grade spiral literacy practice in your classroom, let’s look at some steps to introducing it.

• As the name suggests, any activity you use needs to be review . You want to practice skills your students have already learned. So, the first step is to take assessments on what your 3rd graders know. If you already have your students’ standardized test results, use the data from those to lesson plan your spiral review.
• Then complete the first sheet or game with students. This allows you to model your expectations and show students how it’s done.
• Continue to monitor their progress, as you increase the challenge level slightly each week/ month/ grading period. Scaffolding the challenge in this way keeps students motivated to improve as they review.

These are the basic steps to having spiraled practice with literacy. Put these steps on repeat throughout the school year and you will be amazed at how much your students retain!

If you need specific strategies to help struggling readers, these blog posts have several tips for you:

• The Most Common Ways Teachers Unknowingly Shame Struggling Readers
• Helping Kids Who Are Struggling with Reading

How is Spiral Literacy Review Different from Daily Grammar Practice?

Since ELA includes reading, writing, language skills, and grammar–it feels overwhelming trying to include daily practice for all of it.

Just to be clear, literacy includes grammar, but they are not synonyms.

Daily grammar practice benefits 3rd graders just like spiral literacy review. Yet, the major difference is that literacy for Grade 3 should strengthen these reading skills:

• Decoding–Phonemic Awareness

Remember these from earlier? They are the essential ingredients to reading success.

Whereas grammar focuses on things like punctuation, spelling, and capitalization rules.

If your spiraled curriculum does not include all of the reading skills or any grammar practice, then supplement with standards-aligned worksheets or literacy centers like the ones mentioned above.

How Do Fit All This Into My Literacy Block?

Trying to complete all of these activities every day stresses out teachers and students! So, here’s the good news: you DON’T have to do it all every single day.

You also do not have to cram every activity into your literacy block, especially if you teach in a self-contained 3rd grade classroom.

For example, completing spiral worksheets for morning work or assigning them as homework counts.

Having engaging literacy practice during small group stations or guided reading also counts.

In addition to this, you can combine Math and Literacy to give students even more practice with both subject areas.

The books on this list offer great examples of math picture books for 3rd grade readers.

Free 3rd Grade Spiral Literacy Practice

In closing, as you get the hang of spiral learning in your classroom, you will see so many benefits for how it impacts reading.

Be sure to grab these free printables that can be used with reading curriculum.

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