Having a great memory can help your child do better in school and on tests and get better grades. Here are 10 ways that you can help your child improve his/her memory, including remembering facts, concepts, ideas, formulas and more:
- Make certain your child really understands the concept or formula he/she is required to memorize. Understanding a subject means that he/she is halfway to remembering it. Encourage your child to ask questions in class when he/she is unsure of an idea or fact.
- To remember something such as a name or math formula, exactly, word for word, get your child to make a rhyme or song from the information. Because humans are wired to remember music and its associations, setting facts to music can help children remember them.
- If they aren't already, help your child become interested in the subject they need to memorize. Check out books, stories, videos, movies or music on the subject. Or visit a museum or gallery. If your child gets interested in the material he/she is learning, he/she will surely remember it more easily.
- Make sure the first thing that your child studies is the thing(s) he/she wants to remember the longest.
- Whenever possible, encourage your child to use mental images to help him/her remember information. Suggest that your child close his/her eyes and get a picture in his/her mind of how the information looks in the textbook or notebook. Ask your child to visualize the notes on the page and see key words that he/she has underlined.
- Have your child make his/her own examples and illustrations. When your child creates his/her own system for organization (using specific colors for headers, making numbered lists of facts to be memorized, putting information into charts and graphs, etc.) he or she will be more likely to remember the information.
- Teach your child use a specific picture to represent an idea or concept. Another way is to create a mind map of various ideas and how they relate to one another.
- Have your child make a list of key words to explain an idea or subject. Then, form associations among the items they need to memorize. The more distinct the associations, the easier they'll be to remember.
- Encourage your child to explain the information he/she is memorizing to a parent, sibling or friend without referring to notes. Make it a challenge to see how much he/she can remember. Then go back and study the information again and again to memorize it totally.
- Your child should study notes by reading them through from start to finish, then focusing on the parts that he/she doesn't know as completely.
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