Explain and Record

One child explains out loud. The other writes down what they hear, without interrupting. Then they swap — and the child who has just been recorded finds out exactly how much of their explanation actually made it across.

Not interrupting is the discipline. The recorder writes what was said, not what they think was meant.

Paper and a partner. Nothing else. The sheet gives the recorder somewhere to put it.

Six minutes. Two rounds, so both children explain and both record.

A timer for each stage, with what the children do in each · free to try · no sign-up

The sheet it prints — optional

The printable Explain and Record sheet — an A4 page for the recorder to write what their partner explained.

What is explain and record?

Explain and record is a paired structure with two named roles. The Explainer talks through their thinking out loud; the Recorder writes down what they hear, without interrupting or correcting. After a set time the pair swap roles.

Its value is diagnostic. An explanation that sounds fluent to the person giving it often turns out, on paper, to have a gap in the middle — and the recorder's notes make that gap visible to both of them without anybody having to criticise anything.

How do you run it, step by step?

Explainer (about two minutes). One child talks through their method, reasoning or answer. Wrong turns included — they are the useful bit.
Recorder (about two minutes). Runs at the same time: the partner writes the key ideas as they hear them. No interrupting, no questions, no corrections.
Swap (about two minutes). Change roles and run it again with the other child explaining.

Six minutes for both rounds. Reading the notes back at the end takes another minute and is where most of the learning lands.

Why can the recorder not interrupt?

Because the moment they can, they start co-constructing the explanation, and you lose the only honest record of what one child could say unaided. A recorder who asks “do you mean the numerator?” has just supplied the word that was missing.

Questions are allowed afterwards, and that is when they are useful — the recorder can point at the gap in their own notes rather than filling it in real time.

From the classroom

What I did not anticipate is how hard the recording is. My first attempt had recorders trying to transcribe, falling behind, and interrupting to ask people to slow down — which broke the thing entirely. Now I tell them explicitly: you are not writing it all down, you are writing the steps. Three or four lines is a good set of notes. I also give the explainer somewhere to look that is not their partner's face, because two children sitting opposite each other in silence is socially excruciating for about the first ninety seconds — I have them sit side by side, both facing the work. The pay-off is the read-back, and I make time for it now: the explainer reads their partner's notes of their own explanation, and you can watch them realise which step they never actually said out loud. With Year 6 this is the best diagnostic I have for maths reasoning.

What usually goes wrong?

The recorder tries to transcribe. Say it explicitly: steps, not sentences. Three or four lines.
The recorder interrupts and supplies the missing word, destroying the diagnostic.
The read-back is skipped, which is where the value actually is.
The explainer gives the answer rather than the reasoning. Ask for how, not what.

Which year groups is it for?

Year group	US grade	What to change	How long
Years 3–4	Grades 2–3	One minute each way. Recorder draws rather than writes if that is easier.	5 min
Years 5–6	Grades 4–5	Two minutes each way, plus the read-back.	7 min
Year 7 and up	Grades 6–8	Recorder marks where they lost the thread, and the pair repairs it together.	10 min

Compared with the other paired structures

Think Pair Share is faster and both children talk, but nothing is captured.
Hot Seat also puts one person's thinking under scrutiny, in front of the whole class rather than one partner.
Two Stars and a Wish is the version for responding to finished work rather than to thinking in progress.

Free to try · no sign-up · the sheet is optional

Think Pair Share →Quicker, and both children talk at once rather than one at a time. All 24 cooperative structures →Think Pair Share, Round Robin, Snowball and the rest — each with a timer and a step-by-step.

Written by a practising primary school teacher, and part of the free-to-try Teaching Routines set on Sage Teachers. Last checked August 2026. Everything here is free to try.