Eight rules before you print a worksheet
Before you print a worksheet, check eight things: one goal, clear instructions, a worked example at the top, rising difficulty, room to write, one item that asks students to explain, no clutter, and nothing lost in black and white. Here are the checks, with one worksheet before and after.
A good worksheet — eight checks before you print
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- Definition
- Worksheet: A practice page students work through alone or in pairs after the explanation, with one goal, whose answers tell the teacher what has settled from the lesson and what has not.
The same worksheet, before and after
The figure shows two worksheets for the same lesson — adding fractions with unlike denominators in Grade 6, the independent practice in a lesson plan. The content did not change; everything around it did. The numbers on both sheets are the eight rules: on the left where a rule is broken, on the right where it is fixed.
| Rule | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| 1. One goal | “Fractions and decimals” on one sheet | “Goal: add two fractions with different denominators” |
| 2. Clear instructions | “Solve the following” | “Write the common denominator first, then the answer in simplest form” |
| 3. Worked example | None | at the top |
| 4. Rising difficulty | Starts with a long word problem | Starts where one denominator divides the other; ends with the word problem |
| 5. Room to write | A short line after the = sign | A box under each problem, big enough for the steps |
| 6. One “explain” item | None | A last item: find the mistake in a worked answer |
| 7. No clutter | A coloured star and circle in the header | Name and goal only |
| 8. Black and white | The hard problem shaded in colour, with no other mark | Difficulty shown by black dots: one, then two, then three |
Here is the revised worksheet in full. Its problems were written for this post, not copied from a textbook, and the answer key is not on this page — solve them yourself before you hand them out.
Name: ................ Goal: add two fractions with different denominators and write the answer in simplest form.
Instructions: solve each problem in the box under it. Write the common denominator first, then the answer in simplest form.
Worked example: . The common denominator is 12; and , so the sum is , which does not simplify.
- , then write the answer in simplest form
- Samer walked km in the morning and km in the evening. How far did he walk that day?
- Explain: a student wrote . Is bigger or smaller than ? Explain in one sentence why that shows the answer is wrong.
The eight rules: check your sheet against them
Read your sheet as a student who missed the explanation, and tick each rule it meets. Whatever fails usually takes a minute or two to fix.
Goal and instructions
- One goal: you can write the sheet's goal in one sentence with a verb you can see on paper, and every problem serves it.
- Clear instructions: a student knows what to do from the instructions alone, without asking you — where to write, and in what form.
- A worked example at the top: the head of the sheet has one problem solved with every step, of the kind students will solve.
The problems
- Rising difficulty: anyone who followed the lesson can do the first problem; the last is for those who have it secure.
- Room to write: under each problem there is space for the steps, not just the answer.
- One “explain” item: one question where students write why, not only what.
The look
- No clutter: no clip art, no borders, no decorative fonts; any drawing on the sheet is part of a problem.
- Black and white: you photocopied one copy in black and white before printing for the class, and nothing was lost.
Why each rule
Goal, instructions, example: so no one learns the mistake alone
A sheet that mixes two lessons cannot tell you which one was not understood. Vague instructions make students ask you, and the class stalls at every question. The worked example has strong research behind it: “Cognitive load theory: Research that teachers really need to understand”, a review by the NSW Department of Education's Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (September 2017), summarises the “worked example effect”: novice learners who study worked examples do better on later tests than learners asked to solve the equivalent problems themselves.
Difficulty, space, explanation: so you see where understanding stopped
The same review names an important exception, the “expertise reversal effect”: as students gain expertise, worked examples help less, until they get in the way. That is why the example sits at the top only, and the problems move away from it step by step: one denominator divides the other, then an answer that simplifies, then denominators that share no factor, then a common denominator smaller than their product, then a word problem. When a student goes wrong, you know at which step. The space shows you the working, not only the answer. And the explain item shows how a student thinks: one who writes a correct sentence about it understands what a fraction means, not only the rule for adding.
Clutter and colour: so attention goes to the problems
The review also describes the “redundancy effect”: when learners are given information they do not need, part of their working memory goes on it — it quotes John Sweller saying unnecessary information can be a major reason for instructional failure. And the “split-attention effect”: when students must combine two separate sources in their head, such as a diagram and an explanation printed away from it, the two should be integrated in one place. Put the instruction next to the problem, and the labels inside the diagram.
As for colour, the W3C's WCAG 2.2 accessibility guidance says colour must not be the only visual means of conveying information, because people who cannot tell colours apart may not see it. A sheet run through a black-and-white photocopier loses all its colour, and whatever the colour alone carried goes with it. Mark difficulty with dots or numbers, not shading.
The five-minute check before printing
Solve the sheet yourself on a printed copy
In pen, in the boxes themselves. If they will not hold your working, they will not hold a Grade 6 student's. Time yourself — students will need longer.
Read the instructions on their own
Cover the problems and ask: do I know where to write, what to write, and in what form?
Cover everything except the example and the first problem
Could a student solve the first problem by following the example alone? If not, the gap between them is too wide.
Photocopy one copy in black and white
And look at it: did a diagram, a mark or a word disappear?
Decide what you will do with the explain answers
Read them first, and sort them into three piles as you would with an exit ticket. If you need a short comment on every sheet, short feedback phrases has thirty ready stems.
When to break a rule on purpose
These rules are for a practice sheet after teaching, and not all of them fit every sheet. A diagnostic test leaves out the worked example, because you want to see what students know without support. An advanced student does not need the example, and it may even hinder their learning, as the expertise reversal effect shows — give them a sheet that starts where their classmates' ends, as in one worksheet at three levels. And if printing itself is the problem, some sheets work on screen or from one shared copy; that is another post.
The task on the board at the start of a lesson is a small worksheet too, and the same rules apply; six routines for classroom management shows how to make it a daily habit.
Frequently asked questions
- What makes a good worksheet?
- One goal, instructions a student can follow alone, a worked example at the top, problems that rise from easy to hard with room to work, one item that asks for an explanation, and a plain layout that survives black-and-white copying.
- How many questions should a worksheet have?
- As many as a student can finish in the time you give, and no more. Solve it yourself and time it, remembering students need longer than you. A sheet nobody finishes tells you nothing about its last problems.
- Where can I find ready-made printable worksheets?
- Plenty of sites and teacher groups share them. Run any of them through the eight checks before printing, and fix what is missing. If you want one for your own lesson, make it in String for free, then run the same checks.
- Should the answers go on the worksheet?
- Not on the student's copy. Keep the answer key on yours, and solve the sheet yourself before printing — that is what catches the unclear problem before your students do.
Sources
Every fact in this post that we did not produce ourselves comes from one of these sources.
- Cognitive load theory: Research that teachers really need to understand — Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (CESE), NSW Department of Education, 2017-09
- Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.1: Use of Color (WCAG 2.2) — W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, 2025-09-16 (updated)
Written with String's editorial team: we use AI for research and first drafts, and a person checks every fact and every source before anything is published. How we write
Founder and CEO, String
“I grew up in a house of teachers.” I spent a year designing the STEM program for one of the largest school groups in Saudi Arabia, have written curriculum by hand, trained robotics coaches and sold software into schools, then left that job to build String in Amman.
