What to do when a child has memorised the answers

A child who has done the same addition sheet five times will finish it in half the time by the fifth. This looks like progress and often is not: what has improved is their memory of that sheet, not their arithmetic. The difference matters, because one of them transfers to the next sheet and the other does not.

How to tell

Change one thing and see what survives. Ask the same sums in a different order, or write three of them on the back of an envelope, or say them out loud. Arithmetic that has been learnt comes out at roughly the same speed however it is presented. Arithmetic that has been memorised off a page falls apart as soon as the page changes.

What to print instead

• The same skill, different numbers. This is what the worksheet generators here are for: every visit builds a fresh sheet of the same kind of sums, so the questions are never the ones from last week.
• The same numbers, a different shape. A child who can do 7 + 5 in a column and not in a row has learnt the column. Mixing the layout is often enough on its own.
• The skill backwards. If addition is solid, ask for the missing number: 7 + ? = 12. It uses the same fact and cannot be answered from memory of a sheet.

Keep the easy work too

None of this is an argument against repetition. Number facts have to become automatic, and that takes more repetitions than anyone enjoys. The point is only that the repetition should be of the skill rather than of the page, and that is a printing decision rather than a teaching one.