Spaced repetition for kids: how to make new vocabulary stick

1. Keep practice short and regular

Learn a few words today, try them again tomorrow, then return to them a few days later. Your child gets practice remembering them after a break.

That’s the idea behind spaced repetition. Instead of repeating a word ten times in a row, you come back to it with gaps in between. Words your child already knows come up less often. Shaky ones come up more.

This isn’t just a hunch. A review of 22 studies run in real classrooms found that spreading practice out clearly beat the same amount of practice done in one go (Mawson & Kang, Behavioral Sciences, 2025).

2. Small portions, every day

Start with around ten minutes a day. How many words fit into that time depends on how new or difficult they are for your child:

• Start with a few new words. Try five to ten a day and adjust if that feels like too much.
• Pick a regular time. After lunch, on the bus or before dinner. A familiar routine makes it easier to get started.
• Make room for breaks. If your child is tired and starts guessing, pause and come back for another short session later.

3. One topic at a time

Start with a small group of words from the current topic or textbook unit to keep the workload manageable. Include reviews of older words too, using a simple schedule or a flashcard app.

Mixing everything together isn’t always better. A review found that the benefits of mixed (“interleaved”) practice varied by material. Studies using words favoured practising groups separately over mixing them (Brunmair & Richter, 2019). That doesn’t establish a rule for textbook units. Keep reviewing older words alongside new ones.

4. Remember first, then check

Cover the answer and give your child a moment to remember it. Then check together. If they can’t recall it, show the answer and try again later.

A familiar-looking word can feel learned before your child can recall it unaided. Ask them to say the answer before revealing it, so they can see which words need more practice.

Practise both directions, too: what does “chien” mean in English, and how do you say “dog” in French? Understanding a word and finding it yourself are different tasks. Have your child write or type the word as well to practise spelling.

5. Say the words out loud

Invite your child to say a new word out loud, then use it in a short sentence: “J’ai un chien. Mon chien s’appelle Max.”

Saying words aloud can help memory. The production-effect study compared words spoken aloud with words read silently in the same list (MacLeod et al., 2010). It doesn’t mean every word needs to be spoken. For pronunciation, let your child listen to an unfamiliar word first, then repeat it.

6. Make room for learning together

You can help without turning every conversation into a quiz:

• Protect the practice time. Find a quiet moment when your child isn’t rushed.
• Ask with curiosity instead of testing. “Which word was funny today?” rather than “What’s the word for fridge?”
• Join in. If you’re learning something yourself, sit down together. Everyone practises their own stuff.

Practising with Minki

If you’d rather not plan the repetitions yourself, a flashcard app can do it. That’s what we’re building with Minki. Your child turns a card over and says how well they knew it: Again, Good or Easy. Minki then plans when the card comes back. New cards are capped per day, so the portions stay small.

For the words from class, the best option is a small deck of your own, one topic at a time. The guide to creating a deck shows how. If your child is learning German, the free English–German Starter Words deck in the library has 311 everyday words in seven topics, with pronunciation. One side is German and the other is English. By default you practise both directions, German → English and English → German.

Minki runs right in the browser, with no account, and works offline once a deck is downloaded. Siblings can share one tablet, and each gets their own learner profile with their own progress.

Start with a small group of words today. Tomorrow, check what your child remembers and what needs another try. That leaves time to focus on the difficult words before the quiz.