What Is Drill and Practice?

What Is Drill and Practice?

Drill and practice is an instructional method that uses repetition to help students master a specific skill or piece of knowledge. It involves giving students the same or similar materials repeatedly until they achieve proficiency. The main goal is to reinforce learning and build automaticity, making the skill feel like second nature. As students show they've grasped the material, they can progress to more challenging tasks.

Drill and Practice Strategies and Activities

Drill and practice strategies involve structured, repetitive activities designed to help students internalize foundational knowledge. These methods focus on reinforcing memory and mastery through repeated exposure to the same or similar materials.

Typically, these activities give students a set of questions or tasks to complete multiple times, sometimes with a time limit. The intention is to build automaticity with a skill, and assessment is often provided quickly to give feedback on performance.

Here are some common drill and practice strategies and activities:

• Flashcards: Using physical or digital cards to review facts, vocabulary, or procedures through repetition
• Problem Sets: Completing a series of similar problems to practice a specific skill, such as in mathematics
• Repetitive Exercises: Engaging in structured drills that require students to recall and apply core skills
• Kinesthetic Drills: Performing physical actions repeatedly to build muscle memory for skills in areas like music, sports, or typing
• Computer-Based Drills: Using software that provides repeated questions and offers immediate feedback on student responses
• Timed Activities: Completing a drill or set of problems within a specific time frame to build speed and accuracy
• Systematic Review: Regularly revisiting learned material through structured sessions to support long-term retention
• Confidence-Based Repetition: A method where the frequency of review is adjusted based on the learner's self-assessed confidence with the material.
• Individual Practice: Having students work through drill and practice exercises on their own, which some studies suggest is more effective for children than paired work.
• Flipped Classroom Integration: Assigning drill and practice as independent work outside of class, which allows classroom time to be used for collaborative or project-based activities.

Drill and Practice Benefits

While drill and practice is a familiar instructional strategy, it's important to consider its applications and outcomes. This method has specific effects on student learning, both in how it helps and where it may fall short.

Drill and practice can help students acquire foundational skills and build automaticity through repetition. However, its effectiveness is often limited to basic knowledge, and its use can lead to memorization without a deeper conceptual understanding.

Here are some of the benefits associated with drill and practice:

• Skill Mastery: Repetition helps students learn certain concepts quickly and effectively.
• Automaticity: Foundational skills can become second nature, freeing up cognitive resources for more complex tasks.
• Knowledge Application: It provides a way for students to apply knowledge through interaction, moving beyond a single exposure to the material.
• Memorization Support: The method is useful for memorizing information like multiplication tables or vocabulary words.
• Skill Refinement: It is effective for honing skills that require repetition for improvement, such as in music or physical education.
• Building Blocks for Learning: Once students master basic skills, they can more easily approach higher-level topics.
• Pronunciation Habits: In language learning, drilling can help students develop consistent pronunciation.
• Multi-Skill Practice: Activities can be structured to practice listening, reading, and speaking skills at the same time.
• Accommodates Learning Styles: Using different types of drills, like flashcards or rewriting, can support students with various learning preferences.
• Foundational Knowledge: The strategy is often used with elementary students to lay a foundation of basic knowledge.

Drill and Practice Examples

Drill and practice activities can take many forms, from traditional worksheets and flashcards to digital games and physical exercises. These methods are used across various subjects to help students practice specific skills through repetition.

This method is primarily used for building procedural and declarative knowledge, focusing on repetition to make skills automatic. However, it is generally not suited for developing higher-order thinking skills, and some educators question its impact on creativity.

Here are a few examples of drill and practice activities:

• Spelling Tests: Students practice an assigned list of words and are then assessed through oral or written tests, with retests given to reinforce learning.
• Computer-Based Drills: Learners use software to answer similar questions repeatedly, often receiving immediate feedback to reinforce mathematical or language skills.
• Choral Practicing: The teacher models the pronunciation of words or phrases, and the entire class repeats them in unison until fluency is achieved.
• Grammar Workbooks: Students complete exercises on topics like sentence structure or verb usage, repeating the tasks to internalize grammatical rules.
• Kinesthetic Drills: Learners practice physical or procedural skills through repetition in real-life situations, such as in sports, music, or typing.

Drill and Practice Best Practices

Applying drill and practice effectively involves more than just repetition. It requires a structured approach to reinforce skills and knowledge, aiming for proficiency without leading to rote memorization.

To implement this method, you first identify the learning objectives and design corresponding exercises. You can then assess student understanding before and after the practice sessions to measure progress and gather feedback.

Here are some examples of drill and practice best practices:

• Repeated Exercises and Guidance: Providing students with multiple exercises on a topic while offering support to help them with their understanding
• Mind Maps with Drill and Practice: Using visual tools like mind maps to help students organize information and see connections within a subject
• Practical Hands-on Activities: Incorporating physical activities to connect theoretical knowledge with direct experience
• Oral Proficiency Drills: Conducting repeated oral exercises to build students' fluency and command of subject-specific vocabulary
• Post-Activity Questionnaires: Using questionnaires after practice sessions for students to reflect on their learning and for you to assess the activity's effectiveness

Teach with TeachShare

Drill and practice is a reliable method for helping students master foundational skills through repetition, building both their knowledge and confidence. This instructional practice promotes skill acquisition and reinforces important concepts for learners. Start creating resources with TeachShare now to easily design effective drill and practice activities for your classroom.