2. What is Incrementalism?

What is Incremental Reading?¶

Incremental Reading is a strategy for learning pioneered by Piotr Wozniak and first implemented in the software SuperMemo. It’s a superset of Spaced Repetition. Whereas spaced repetition focuses on effectively lodging existing information into long-term memory, incremental reading broadens the scope to also include the preliminary steps of acquiring and distilling the information. (Giorgi Gvalia)

Incremental Reading in Simple Terms¶

by Hugo Marins

Reading is where everything begins. When someone discovers the pleasure of learning, he soon thanks God for this wonderful blessing we have been bestowed with: the ability to read. Though there are several sources of information and knowledge transmission, like speaking, listening, speeches, discipleship, and so one, humanity soon realized that writing what is most important let us postpone the necessary steps to internalize that content later. Inscriptions, scrolls and later books became the primary tool to preserve knowledge across time and space.

But having knowledge fossilized in books and not having it in our minds isn't that helpful, is it? While books allow us to preserve knowledge and postpone the ingraining processes, they must necessarily follow, otherwise the knowledge will die anyway.

The jewish Shema Yisrael (שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל), written by the prophet Moses about 3,500 years ago, is a solid testimony that humanity knows very well that having inscriptions in books it not enough to change our lives:

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

Can you see how many steps the jewish people are ordered to take in order to internalize and ingrain the laws of God in their minds? Nobody thought that having an open bible over a desk was enough; it obviously wasn't. Though having the written Word of God was perceived as an astonishing blessing, the people knew they would have to spend time on those words to make it real and efficient to them.

This example of the jewish Shema ushers us to the next step: Active Recall (same as Testing Effect or Retrieval Practice). It is "active" in the sense that it is opposed to passive review (like re-reading). It pressuposes engagement and commitment. See how many steps and willingful demonstrations of commitment God expected from the jewish people in relation to the Word He gave them? Theaching and transmitting it diligently to their children, talking about it all day long, having signs of it in the body in their houses. If the reader has not active engagement with the material, he is fooling himself. There is no magic here. Writing was not supposed to free us from the burden of engaging with learning material, but to make it possible. When did we lose this so basic comprehension?

Another testimony of how humanity for millennia understood the importance of active recall are the Christian catechisms. They are structured question-and-answer summaries of faith used to teach core doctrines. Formal written catechisms emerged in the Late Middle Ages, and the Protestant Reformation triggered a surge in their creation and use. Quoting the 1st question of the renowned Westminster Shorter Catechism (1649):

Q. What is the chief end of man?

A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Do you see the pattern? A question triggering a cue that the learner would use to retrieve a specific content on his mind. During the puritan period, children used to learn by heart the 107 Q&As of this catechism. Once more: when did we lose those so foundational understandings?

Well, then modern period arises, some supposedly enlightened minds came up with the idea that we should not memorize things, but rather to understand (there is a false dichotomy here!). As if understanding was possible without having concepts in mind. And the so called "rote" learning was thrown out of the window. And here we are, full of books that we read just to forget a little time after. The "enlightened" educational standards of today are nothing more than dense darkness. If you don't rediscover Active Recall in your learning journey, you will be forever stuck at this stumbling block.

As soon as you ingrain Active Recall in your learning, you are ready to be introduced to the next step: Spaced Repetition. In opposition to massed practice, you should spread your learning in time in order to enhance your learning. There is even an "optimun" moment to review a content: not too close (you would be rellying in Working Memory and not stregthen your long-term memories), not too far. There are Desireable Difficulties (see Desirable Difficulties) that make learning more effective and recommend you let your review to when you were about to forget a content (this category has been coined by Robert Bjork). In order to successfully increase the Stability of your memories (what Bjork calls Storage Strength), you should review the content when its Retrievability (that Bjork calls Retrieval Strength) is not too high. Reviewing too soon, when it is too easy for you to recall, has a timid effect in the strengthening of your memory patterns.

The use of flashcards with computional algorithms scheduling reviews has proven to be the best method to incorporate both Active Recall and Spaced Repetition in your learning. Since 1987, when the first computer version of SuperMemo was released, passing by Anki (first released in 2006, by far the most wide-spread SRS software and the major responsible for the popularization of SRS) and reaching RemNote (first released in 2020), there is no better study method than using flashcard softwares to incorporate both Active Recall and Spaced Repetition in learning.

As a bonus, these systems facilitate Interleaving by shuffling diverse subjects into a single study session, which forces the brain to actively differentiate between concepts and results in far more durable long-term retention than traditional, repetitive "blocked" study.

Everything appears perfect now, right? Well, not exactly. The problem is that these learning systems may "collapse" under large volumes of knowledge. Even though the mechanisms so far mentioned make your learning effective, they charge their price: huge time investment. Paraphrasing Saint Teresa of Ávila, "it is fair that much cost what is much worth". But when learning demands pile up on you, those mechanisms may fall short of your needs. This is exactly the problem that Incremental Reading (IR) was created to solve. It brings to you tools that allow you to effectively apply a couple of other principles needed to make learning sustainable: prioritization and incremental processing. Instead of trying to "Ankify" everything you want to learn (that is, enter things in Anki or other SRS app, making flashcards out of it), you'll need to find the balance between aquisition and retention; intermingle review and reading; skim & scan your learning sources and intentionally approach what is more important first, postponing details for later (or never!); and continuosly reassess the importance and relevance of each piece of knowledge to your needs and goals. This quite sofisticated and complex learning environment surrounded and feb by all these proven learning principles is what defines Incrementalism.

Incremental Reading can Leverage your Learning in RemNote¶

Before the advent of incremental reading, you had two extreme alternatives: - traditional learning with high volume of the learning material and dismal retention. This learning can be called High In - High Out (HIHO) as high volumes of knowledge processed on the input are accompanied by equally high volumes of knowledge on the "output" (i.e. lost out to forgetting) - SRS (Spaced Repetition Softwares, like RemNote, Anki or SuperMemo) with a small volume of strategic material remembered for years with a predetermined level of knowledge retention (LILO - Low knowledge input with low forgetting outflow)

Neither alternative provides a complete solution to the problem of forgetting. The balance between the two alternatives was left to the student. The optimum strategy was to use traditional learning to sift the strategic material, and then to memorize mission-critical material with the SRS.

The confinement of SRS to strategic material was a powerful inhibitory force against their universal adoption: - The process of selecting the strategic knowledge was not automated - The student had to master knowledge structuring skills to make the memorized knowledge truly applicable - Passive review was discounted as ineffective and was not used as a knowledge prioritization tool - Accumulation of due [outstanding] material after a short break was the number one cause of users dropping SRS for good

Incremental reading bridges the worlds of traditional learning and that of SRS by providing a fluent transition between all priority levels and learning stages starting from quick review, to repeated passive review (Incremental Rems), to active recall of flashcards, ending in the active review of these flashcards in optimum intervals to ensure retention for life.

(Adapted from SuperMemo "Postpone" article)

Incremental learning might be as important [to SuperMemo] as the original repetition spacing idea. Incremental learning eliminates a number of bottlenecks that limit various stages of knowledge acquisition. (SuperMemo Incremental Learning article)

📄 Karpicke, Jeffrey D. Retrieval-Based Learning: Active Retrieval Promotes Meaningful Learning (2012)