Leitner system
moving them forward or back depending on whether they
Correctly answered cards remembered them.
1 2 3 4 5 2 Examples
Incorrectly answered cards 2.1 Three boxes
In the Leitner system, correctly answered cards are advanced to
the next, less frequent box, while incorrectly answered cards re-
turn to the first box.
Correctly answered cards
1 2 3 4 5
Incorrectly answered cards
Animation of three sessions. Click to enlarge
An alternative method where incorrect answers are only moved Suppose there are 3 boxes of cards called “Box 1”, “Box
back by one box
2” and “Box 3”. The cards in Box 1 are the ones that the
learner often makes mistakes with, and Box 3 contains
The Leitner system is a widely used method of effi- the cards that they know very well. They might choose
ciently using flashcards that was proposed by the German to study the Box 1 cards once a day, Box 2 every 3 days,
science journalist Sebastian Leitner in the 1970s. It is a and the Box 3 cards every 5 days. If they look at a card
simple implementation of the principle of spaced repeti- in Box 1 and get the correct answer, they “promote” it to
tion, where cards are reviewed at increasing intervals. Box 2. A correct answer with a card in Box 2 “promotes”
that card to Box 3. If they make a mistake with a card in
Box 2 or Box 3, it gets “demoted” to the first box, which
1 Method forces the learner to study that card more often.
The advantage of this method is that the learner can fo-
In this method flashcards are sorted into groups accord- cus on the most difficult flashcards, which remain in the
ing to how well the learner knows each one in the Leitner’s first few groups. The result is, ideally, a reduction in the
learning box. The learners try to recall the solution writ- amount of study time needed.
ten on a flashcard. If they succeed, they send the card
to the next group. If they fail, they send it back to the
first group. Each succeeding group has a longer period of 2.2 Proficiency levels
time before the learner is required to revisit the cards. In
Leitner’s original method, published in his book So Lernt This example uses 5 proficiency levels and 12 decks of
Man Lernen, the schedule of repetition was governed by flash cards. Cards at Proficiency Level 1 are reviewed at
the size of the partitions in the learning box. These were every learning session; those at Level 5 are retired and no
1, 2, 5, 8 and 14cm. Only when a partition became full longer in use. Those at Levels 2, 3, and 4 are reviewed
was the learner to review some of the cards it contained, every 2nd, 3rd, and 4th session, respectively.
1
2 3 AUTOMATION
Learning sessions are numbered from 0 to 9, then the
numbering starts over again (that is, 0, 1, 2, ... 8, 9, 0,
1, 2 ...). Cards at Level 1 are in Deck Current; those at
Level 5 are in Deck Retired; all other cards are in 1 of
these 10 “progress” decks, each of which begins with a
title card sporting 4 digits:
• 0-2-5-9
• 1-3-6-0
• 2-4-7-1
• 3-5-8-2
• 4-6-9-3
• 5-7-0-4
• 6-8-1-5
• 7-9-2-6
• 8-0-3-7
• 9-1-4-8
If a learner is successful at a card from Deck Current, it
gets transferred into the progress deck that begins with
that session’s number. (For example, success at a card
during Session 6 transfers it from Deck Current to Deck
6-8-1-5.) Cards from that deck are reviewed whenever a
number from the deck title matches the session number.
(For example, cards from Deck 6-8-1-5 will be reviewed
again at Sessions 8, 1, and 5.) If a learner has difficulty
with a card during a subsequent review, the card is re-
turned to Deck Current; otherwise it stays in its progress
deck. When a learner is successful at a card during a ses-
sion that matches the last number on the deck (for exam-
ple, Session 5 for Deck 6-8-1-5), that card goes into Deck
Retired, and the title card for that progress deck is freed
up for use at the following session.
3 Automation
Ideas similar to these have been implemented into a num-
ber of computer-assisted language learning and flashcard
software. Much of this software makes use of so-called
“electronic flashcards”.
3
4 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses
4.1 Text
• Leitner system Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system?oldid=757404806 Contributors: Syp, LiamVictor, SmackBot,
McGeddon, Chris the speller, Nbarth, Bart v M, Maurice Carbonaro, Avitohol, Randommelon, Sebatinsky, Hariva, Aaronjwheeler, Zir-
guezi, Addbot, Mortense, Xqbot, WikitanvirBot, RichardSRussell, ClueBot NG, Rbrunner7, Mbeckmann71, Ducknish, Relaxandhavefun
and Anonymous: 12
4.2 Images
• File:Leitner_system.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Leitner_system.svg License: CC0 Contributors:
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• File:Leitner_system_alternative.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Leitner_system_alternative.svg
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• File:Leitner_system_animation.gif Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Leitner_system_animation.gif Li-
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Contributors:
Created from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. Based on Image:Question book.png created by User:Equazcion Original artist:
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