15 Incremental Rehearsal
Definition: The intentional matching of known and unknown skills or concepts for the purpose of supporting practice of the unknown in a low demand and successful session.
Rationale: Learning new concepts or skills can be challenging in isolation. Incremental rehearsal can help provide a success focused environment by pairing instruction of more difficult (e.g., new or unknown) tasks such as an unfamiliar spelling word with easier (e.g., known) spelling words to create a learning environment that uses student success as a motivation for new learning.
Ways to Support Students:
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- Pick a skill, task, or series of tasks that the student has had some success with but is missing a step or some additional components.
- Start the sessions with easy (e.g., previously successful) tasks first and reinforce the student’s accurate responses.
- To start with mix in one newer or more difficult element after some easy elements. As student learns this new task, add in more new ones little by little.
Case Study
Student: Grade 5 student
Content: Identifying key words for a learning unit
Problem: The student is having trouble naming each of the 5 key words for the learning unit.
Solution: The teacher makes picture symbol flash cards for the new and previous unit words. The teacher presents the symbols to the student and asks for them to name the corresponding word- starting first with the symbols that they already know followed by one new word.
Professional Resources:
- Research review on incremental rehearsal study: https://charts.intensiveintervention.org/intervention/toolSGL/44686cd47b922953
- Evidence Based Practice guide including description and example of incremental rehearsal: https://ed-psych.utah.edu/school-psych/_resources/documents/grants/intervention-manuals/interventioni-ina-flash-manual.pdf
- Informational brief on incremental rehearsal with research support and video examples from the University of Missouri: https://cehd.missouri.edu/ebi/2011/03/31/incremental-rehearsal/
