Primer Forgets Nothing
Every lesson your student finishes, every question they answer, and every time they raise their hand, Primer keeps it. Not as a log you have to read, but as the thing that decides what comes next. This post explains what that memory actually does, and why it matters more the longer your student learns with us.
A record of how your student learns
Memory in Primer is kept per student. Two siblings on the same account have two separate records, and neither one is ever reset at the end of a lesson, a week, or a unit. Each record is built from four kinds of evidence, and all four come straight from what your student actually did.
Every lesson
What was taught, in which format, and how it went. Primer knows which ideas your student has already seen and which ones are still new, so a lesson never reintroduces something as if it were the first time.
Every question
Right, wrong, guessed, or skipped. A missed question comes back later in a new form. A mastered one does not get asked again. The exit ticket at the end of each lesson is the measuring stick, and every ticket sharpens the record.
Every raised hand
When your student stops to ask for help with the Need Help? button, Primer notes where and why. A hand raised in the same place twice tells it that something needs another approach, not another repetition.
Every pattern
Put together, these show where your student moves easily and where they need more time, subject by subject. That is the picture you see on the Progress tab, and it is also the picture every new lesson is written from.
Their place on the ladder
Each subject in Primer is a ladder: units in a set order, each one built on the ones below it. We wrote about how those ladders are built in You Are the Principal Now. Memory is what moves your student up them.
A student who understands quickly moves faster, with fewer practice rounds and earlier steps to the next unit. A student who needs more time gets more time, with the missed idea taught again in a different way before anything new is stacked on top of it. The same ladder, climbed at two different speeds, because two different students are climbing it.
Nobody has to set the pace by hand. It comes from what your student actually did, lesson after lesson. You can still step in whenever you like, and the Starting Point Check can set the first rung for you, but the day-to-day pacing is something Primer works out from the record rather than something you have to manage.
More than a lesson on demand
You can ask a chatbot to write a lesson on fractions, and it will. Ask again tomorrow and it writes another one, with no idea what happened yesterday. Each lesson stands alone. Nothing connects them, and nothing checks whether the first one worked.
Primer is built the other way around. There is an overarching design to your student's education: a path through each subject, a reason every lesson sits where it does, and a memory that keeps the whole thing pointed at what your student needs next.
A generated lesson
Starts from zero every time. Does not know what your student already knows, what they missed, or what should come after. Good for a one-off explanation, and nothing more.
A Primer lesson
Starts from everything so far. Placed on a path, shaped by past answers, and followed by the lesson that makes sense next. Each one is a step in a course, not a page torn out of one.
Imagine a month, six months, a year
Memory compounds. The longer Primer works with your student, the more precisely it can teach them, because every new lesson is written with a longer and more detailed record behind it.
- One month
- It knows how they learn. Primer has seen enough lessons to know which formats click, which subjects move quickly, and where your student tends to slow down.
- Six months
- It knows what they know. Hundreds of answers sit behind every new lesson. Weak spots have been revisited until they hold, and strong subjects have moved well ahead.
- One year
- It knows the whole picture. A full year of learning, in order, with nothing lost along the way. Each new lesson builds on all of it, and you can see exactly how your student got here.
A tip for parents
Encourage your student to raise their hand whenever they are stuck, and to answer honestly instead of guessing. Every honest answer makes Primer's memory more accurate, and a more accurate memory means a better next lesson.
The best time to start is early
Every lesson your student takes today is something Primer will build on a month from now. If you are already a subscriber, sign in and open the Progress tab to see the record so far. If you are not, start a free trial, add a student, and let the first lesson become the first thing Primer remembers.