7 techniques to help your child remember information better
Miscellaneous / / April 27, 2022
Aivazovsky's method, storytelling, retelling of material and more.
Mikhail Korotkov
There are several techniques that help not only remember certain data, but also generally train memory and the ability to process new information. They do not require special skills and are suitable for children of any age. It is worth trying all the techniques and choosing the most effective for you.
1. Spaced repetitions
The essence of the method lies in the periodic repetition of the studied material with ever-increasing intervals. There is a formula by which you can calculate the intervals between repetitions: Y = 2X + 1. Y means the day when you need to refresh the lesson in memory, and X means the day of the last repetition.
So, if a student learned new foreign words yesterday, that is, 0 days ago, then they need to be repeated today: Y = 2*0+1. If the child learned the words the day before yesterday (a day ago), then according to the formula Y = 2 * 1 + 1, you need to return to them on the 3rd day, if three days ago - on the 7th day (2 * 3 + 1).
This approach allows you to better remember the material. In addition, in conditions where a student needs to learn several different lessons at the same time, interval repetitions also help to distribute the load.
2. Leitner Method
With its help, it is convenient not only to memorize a specific subject, but also to organize the entire amount of information for effective memorization.
All material is recorded on cards. For example, you can write a term on one side and its definition on the other. The main rule: on one card there should be one thought or fact.
- Cards with information to be remembered, as well as data that are the most difficult to understand, are added to the first box. With them, the child should be engaged regularly
- Cards with already learned or familiar information should be put in another box and contacted. to it only as necessary: to repeat the material or refresh certain data in memory.
- Optionally, you can make a third box, which will contain the information already studied, which nevertheless requires regular repetition.
Instead of paper cards, you can use special applications for a computer or phone, which are also built on the Leitner system. Among the most popular: Anki and EasyWords.
3. Aivazovsky method
The technique of the famous artist Aivazovsky helps train visual (visual) memory.
Invite the child to carefully examine the selected object for 1-5 minutes, and then “draw” it in his imagination, taking into account all the important details. Then you can compare what was replicated and what was not. You can draw visual pictures for 20-30 minutes every day. It’s worth starting with simple objects, and then the plots can be complicated.
Visual memory can be trained even at a very early age with the help of games. For example, lay out a number of things on the table and ask the child to remember their order. Then - mix them up and invite the baby to return everything to its place.
A good visual memory will help the student in learning large amounts of new information and simplify the memorization process.
4. mnemonics
Mnemonics is a way of memorizing information based on associations, when rhymes or images are selected for words, phonetically similar phrases for formulas, and so on.
The techniques of mnemonics help the child to associate abstract information from the textbook with familiar images and phenomena from life. This makes the material clear and easy to digest. The method is effective in learning languages: according to resultsR. C. Atkinson. Mnemotechnics in Second-Language Learning In Richard Atkinson's experiment, students who used mnemonics memorized 40% more foreign words.
There are several simple mnemonics techniques that children can easily master.
Letter code
The first letter of each word in a sentence must stand for a specific word. For example, the following phrase will help to remember the planets: “Teddy bear (Mercury) ate ham (Venus) (Earth) raspberry (Mars), nimble (Jupiter) gopher (Saturn) dragged (Uranus) penknife (Neptune) (Pluto)".
Consonance
This method is well suited for memorizing foreign words. So, the English verb look (look, look) is consonant with the Russian “bow”, and magazin (magazine) resembles a “shop” and so on. To reinforce, you can endow the phrases with additional images: “I bought a magazine in a store.” A similar example is the word capital (capital), which is consonant with the Russian "capital" - it is enough to learn the phrase "capital in capital".
rhymes
We can remember short poems from childhood, but we quickly forget a lecture we listened to a couple of days ago, because the brain easierL. L. Dove Why do rhymes help people remember things? /HowStuffWorks accepts rhyming lines.
In school education, rhymes are widely used to memorize numbers, mathematical laws and theorems. For example, "the median is a monkey, it goes around and bisects the sides." Or “every schoolboy knows what a triangle is, but not everyone knows the wonderful law: any side of it, even the largest, is less than the sum of the two sides.”
Therefore, it is useful to tell the student about well-known phrases, as well as invite him to come up with his own.
5. mental maps
It takes less time to create mental maps that organize information in a graphical form than to write a summary. And at the same time, data is remembered much faster.
In the center of the mind map is the main idea - for example, the topic of a lesson, lecture, or upcoming report. Key thoughts depart from it with arrows, which, in turn, are divided into subparagraphs until the entire material is structured.
By resultsD. A Boley II. Use of Premade Mind Maps to Enhance Simulation Learning / Academia research by scientists from the American Johns Hopkins University, the performance of students who record lectures in the form of mind maps is 12% higher. This is due to the fact that a person thinks in images and associations, and a visual visual scheme is read by the brain. fasterHumans Process Visual Data Better / Thermopylae Science + Technology than a long text or even a table.
In addition, this approach allows you to structure information and see the relationship between its parts, which are invisible at first glance.
Mind maps can be created on paper or in special programs: MindMeister, XMind Zen, Mind Mup, Mind42 and others. They are available on a computer, tablet or phone.
6. Storytelling
A large number of dates and theoretical information on history or other humanitarian subjects is difficult to remember, only memorizing them. The brain perceives information in context much more efficiently: unusual, vivid associations and images are stored in memory longer.
Therefore, for example, you should not just memorize the date and historical fact, it is better to study the event itself, the characters and their character in more detail, look at the portraits of the people in question. It is possible to read works of classical literature describing this period of time. Thus, the student will literally have a story, which will be much more interesting and easier to remember.
7. Retelling of the material
Oral retelling of the material read helps to process information effectively, and, accordingly, contributes to its memorization. At the same time, it does not matter to whom exactly the child will retell the lesson: mom, dad, classmate, teddy bear or himself - the effect will be positive in any case.
In addition, in order to retell a passage, the student must analyze the information, remember the main points, and possibly draw conclusions about the relationships between the main ideas. Thus, the child learns to concentrate, understand the essence of what he read, explain it in his own words, which makes the learning process more effective.
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