A method and system for learning. Items to be learned are distributed among an unmastered pool, a ready pool, a mastered pool, and a delayed pool. Items from the unmastered pool are placed in the ready pool. A current item randomly selected from the ready pool is presented to a user who responds to the item. The current item is sent to the mastered pool if the user's response is correct and (the current item was not previously presented to the user or the user responded correctly to the current item during the last J times that the user responded to the current item). Otherwise, the current item is sent to the delayed pool followed by transferring the current item to the ready pool after K additional items are presented to by the user. J and K are each at least 1.