Memory helps us to retain and recall facts, impressions and events. The fundamental skill that is required to learn any other skill is the ability to memorize.
As we all know our children need to memorize their math facts as a basis for higher level math. In the same manner, kids need to memorize alphabets in order to read and write. By following these simple tips suggested here, you can help your child memorize anything ranging from the name of a person to a math formula.
Using Mnemonic Techniques
The word mnemonic has been derived from a Greek word “mnemonikos” which means “of memory”. Mnemonics are generally verbal in the form of a sentence or a word that can help a child to remember something. They depend upon the association between data to be remembered and some easy to remember sentences or words. As compared to remembering an arbitrary sequence, it is much easier to remember an interesting sentence.
Creating mnemonics proves to be an effective exercise,irrespective of the complexity of the information. Make your child practice only a few to start with but once he is able to apply some of them, he will realize that trick is really effective. Eventually he will start creating them on his own.
It is in fact one of the best techniques to improve memory. For instance if you wish to help a child to spell “arithmetic” then “A rat in the house might eat the ice cream?” can help him as the first alphabet from each word can help him to spell “arithmetic”. Similarly “Some people have curly brown hair through proper brushing” can help an older child to remember the trigonometrical ratios. The secret is to make the mnemonics as catchy as possible.
De-stressing
It is a well known fact that stress results in the information being sent to the reactive brain which prevents it from being transmitted to the reflective and conscious brain. As a result, it is unable to build the long term memory. Try to plan something enjoyable for your child just before the study time. This will help to relax him or her and help in long term retention of content.
Adding Novelty
Remember that novelty has a great influence on learning. An exposure to a new technique will improve memory as well as performance. Using fun math games available on internet will help children to become more open to some of the more repetitive tasks.
You can also create stories to feed the required information into his brain whether it is related to literature or math. The pattern that deals with remembering stories is already quite strong in your child’s brain.
Encouraging Practice
Each sense stores information in brain in a different manner. Introducing practice activities that use different sensory activities will help to store the same piece of information in different regions of brain and multiple pathways will make retrieval much more efficient. For example visual and auditory senses can be used to practice math as well as science.
Implementing these techniques will help you to get improved results and take the memory potential of your child to new heights.
