Episode Details

In this episode of the Structured Literacy podcast, Jocelyn explores the cognitive science concept of primacy and recency, first researched by Hermann Ebbinghaus in the 1880s, which reveals that students best remember information presented at the beginning and end of lessons while content in the middle often gets lost. She explains how teachers can maximise these "prime time" windows by explicitly teaching critical concepts at lesson starts rather than asking students to discover unknown information, breaking longer sessions into 20-30 minute segments with clear transitions, and reserving lesson endings for consolidation and summarising activities. 

Jocelyn warns against common mistakes that waste prime time, such as starting lessons with housekeeping tasks or having students guess at concepts they haven't been taught, and provides practical reflection questions to help educators structure instruction according to how students' brains actually process and retain information. 

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