Memory Strategies to Help Students Remember what they See and Hear in the Classroom The Psycho-Educational Teacher Blog http://thepsychoeducationalteacher.blogspot.com/
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In these days where information travels faster than ever, b eing updated within seconds, we expect students to memorize, understand, and apply more facts and ideas than ever before. There are so many facts and concepts bombarding our brains that teachers and parents need to make sure that children know how to hold on to the important information they the y need to learn, so that they are better able to perform in the classroom and their knowledge base grows. As Sousa (2001) states, learning is learning is the process by which we acquire knowledge, memory is the process by which we retain it. In this article, we present some teaching tips and learning strategies to help students organize and remember the information they need to learn so that they can achieve academically.
Kinds of Memory Richards (2003) distinguishes between semantic or declarative memory and procedural memory. Semantic memory refers to the knowledge of facts, rules, and concepts, for example, symbols for words, rules for manipulating words, and the meaning of words. Procedural words. Procedural memory refers to
procedures or steps to learn new skills, that is, how to do things. Simply put, semantic memory defines and explains facts and ideas (i.e. what a fact or idea is); procedural memory explains how to do something, for example, how to use the long division algorithm to solve a long division problem. In addition, we need to distinguish between short-term memory, for example, the recalling of a person’s name within seconds of p resentation, and long-term memory, for example, being able to recall that same person’s name one year after. Only a few facts and information from our short-term memory move into our long-term memory. This is true for eve rybody, but seems to be an area of major difficulty for children with learning problems. Teachers of students with special needs know very well that most of our students are able to retrieve facts and information from short-term memory without difficulty, but struggle retrieving facts and information from long-term memory. The literature reviewed agrees that typical learners need about 40 rehearsals or practices to transfer information to long-term memory, but children with learning disabilities require at least 200 practices to consolidate the exact same information in long-term memory. Next, we give some teaching tips to help students memorize the information, followed by learning strategies that students can use, at school and at home, to stimulate their memory.
Teaching Tips to Stimulate Students’ Memory Students cannot remember what they do not understand. A new skill or concept is easier to learn and memorize if it fits into what children already kn ow, so help children link the new information in some way to known material. Make sure that students understand the meaning (relevancy) of the new information, or how the new information fits into children’s personal lives. In other words, make sure that the new information makes sense and is meaningful to students. It is the way that students rehearse the new information or skill what helps in recalling, not just how many times they practice. In rehearsing new concepts or skills, add variety and novelty. For example, memorizing a spelling word using five different writing formats (e.g. with a colored pencil, typing, on the chalkboard, throwing bean bags, and jumping the rope) is more effective than simply writing down the same spelling words twenty times in the same way. Another way to add variety is to ask the child to write the spelling word in five different ways, e.g. APP-le, ap ple, A-PP-le, APPLE, and apple.
Short memorizing rehearsals are more productive than long ones. Make sure that each practice is no longer than 30 minutes at a time. With students with special needs, present smaller bits of new information at a time and then require from students to practice what they have learned. Memory improves when students use multiple sensory pathways to learn the material. For example, when students are learning visual material, they need to elaborate verbally on what they are seeing. On the other hand, if students are trying to consolidate verbal material, for ex ample, from the social studies textbook, memorization is easier if they draw a diagram or write smaller bits on information on index cards that they can study visually. When you deliver your lessons, explicitly tell students what is more important about the lecture, for example, “These are the three points that you need to remember…” In addition, you can write the main points, key phrases, and/or key words on the chalkboard. Remember that when the learning material is both meaningful and organized is always easier to remember. Explicitly teach students how to use organization aids such as timelines, outlines, bullet lists, flowcharts, cause and effect diagrams, and/or comparing and contrasting diagrams. Give students practice in highlighting, outlining, and summarizing important information. Teach note-taking skills. Give practice in paraphrasing , and explain to students that information is easier to remember when they translate it into their own words. Make sure students understand that they can remember definitions better if they use their own words, rather than trying to memorize exactly what the teacher said or what they read in the book. When students are learning definitions or new concepts, if they write a short paragraph in their own words is more effective than trying to recall the information word-for-word. Students with low writing skills can make a drawing or a sketch that illustrates the paragraph. To help students understand and remember bigger and/or more complex amounts of information, organize the new information around concepts, for example, Change, Democracy, or Relationships. Concepts help students associate and link information that otherwise they would perceive as different and disconnected, and they help children see the bigger picture.
Learning Strategies to Stimulate Memory
Rehearse the information, that is, repeat it, say it, see it, and do it again.
Associate the information by linking it, finding a similar theme and/or finding what is similar between the items. While you are trying to remember, create associations, e.g. if you are learning about a historical figure, think about what the name sounds like, or what the name and other facts about the figure make you think of.
Create associated pairs, that is, associate items that you commonly see together in the environment, like fish and ocean.
Think of something that connects with the new information, and link the new concept, topic or theme to what you already know.
Think of examples of what you are trying to remember. The more connections you make, the more details you add to the concept or topic, and the more examples you can think of, the better your chances of memorizing and learning the information.
Group the information, placing similar items together, for example, from a grocery list with 23 items, you can create the fruits group, the vegetables group, and the meats group. You need to know how many items you need to remember (23) and how many groups of items are in the list (3). It is harder to remember 23 items from the longer list, but the same items are easier to recall if you put them in three groups, e.g. eight meats, six vegetables, and nine fruits.
Reduce the information you need to remember by organizing it into a few categories. In the previous example, the three categories are fruits, vegetables, and meat.
Think about how you can create categories where you can put the items or concepts together, for example, bodies of water, things that fly, or amphibians. To help you create categories, think how the items go together, e.g. how they sound alike, look alike, and/or what they do or their function.
Reduce the information into smaller chunks. Similar to grouping, the purpose here is to handle smaller bits of information at a time. For ex ample, recalling a number series like, 482691653387 is easier when you split it into chunks like 4826 9165 and 3387.
Relate the items from part to whole, e.g. a fingernail is part of a finger.
Relate information from whole to part , e.g. from the human body (whole) to the body parts.
Use color code to differentiate the categories.
Use the loci technique, making the information local to what you already know.
Recall something from your past or from your environment that reminds you of the new idea or concept e.g. that looks like, sounds like, or can be an example. You can say, “This is like…” or “This reminds me of…”
Think of ways that you can use the new idea or concept in your day-to-day experiences.
Use concept imaging , that is, visualize (see) the concept in your mind, like a mental movie, and exaggerate it. When we visualize, we create a mental image of what we hear, turning the information into stories in our head, like a vide otape. To recall the information, simply “replay the videotape.”
Use visual linking , for example, to recall 4138, picture yourself knocking on the doors of the fourth, first, third, and eighth buildings on your neighborhood.
Whisper under your breath the information that you are trying to remember.
Use verbal rehearsal (talking aloud) to help you remember the steps as you do them.
Number the steps, e.g. first, second, third, and last step. State the idea or concept in your own words as if you were explaining it to your best friend.
Change the information to a different format , that is, from words to pictures or from images to words. For example, if you are reading a paragraph, make a drawing or flowchart that illustrates the concept. If you are studying a dia gram, write a paragraph describing the diagram or orally tell what the diagram is.
Write it down; the simple act of writing something is a memory aid. You do not need to write everything that your teacher says, just write the key phrases or key words of what you hear.
Most of the time, making a sketch and/or drawing symbols help in recalling, for example, if the story character, Delia, is tearful because her puppy was lost, you can draw a sad
face with tears and a little puppy next to the face. An arrow that goes from the puppy to the sad face can connect the two drawings, to explain why Delia is sad. The arrow is a cause and effect symbol.
Prioritize the information you need to remember, from more important to less important. You can create a list with bullets or checkmarks.
Use distributed practice to help you transfer new information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. This is simply rehearsing the same information occasionally. For example, if the teacher tells you that you are going to need the information for the test at the end of the month, don’t wait until the last minute, instead, practice looking for it in your memory once a week or every few days. Rehearse the information in your mind more frequently, that way, when you need it for the test, you will be able to retrieve it from your memory easier.
To remember what you read, stop at the end of each paragraph or page and think about what you just read. In your own words, tell what the paragraph is. You can use two or three sentences from the paragraph to summarize it aloud.
References Richards, R. (2003). The Source for Learning and Memory. East Moline, IL: LinguiSystems. Sousa, D. A. (2001). How the Special Needs Brain Learns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
About the Author Carmen Y. Reyes, The Psycho-Educational Teacher , has more than twenty years of experience as a self-contained special education teacher, resource room teacher, and educational diagnostician. Carmen has taught at all grade lev els, from kindergarten to postsecondary. Carmen is an expert in the application of behavior management strategies, and in teaching students with learning or behavior problems. Her classroom background, in New York City and her native Puerto Rico, includes ten years teaching emotionally disturbed/behaviorally disordered children and four years teaching students with a learning disability or low cognitive functioning. Carmen has a bachelor’s degree in psychology (University of Puerto Rico) and a master’s degree in special education with a specialization in emotional disorders (Long Island University, Brooklyn: NY). She also has extensive graduate training in psychology (30+ credits). Carmen is the author of 60+ books and articles in child guidance and in alternative teaching techniques for low-achieving students. You can read the complete collection of articles on Scribd or her blog, The Psycho-Educational Teacher. To download free the eGuide, Persuasive
Discipline: Using Power Messages and Suggestions to Influence Children Toward Positive Behavior, visit Carmen’s blog.
