Childhood is all about going through new experiences, grasping knowledge, and learning new things every day. Memory plays a vital role in helping children retain their lessons in their everyday lives. A good memory is one of the key skills that help kids in their school and helps them actively participate and excel in every aspect of their lives.
Given how important memory retention is, it is still one of the most common problems parents, and tutors face while preparing their children for exams. Kids struggle to retain learning and remember their prior knowledge, which they just learned a while ago, and this is especially true when the topic involves a lot of new information, such as vocabulary, spelling words, etc.
While there can be many reasons for a child’s poor memory retention, such as any event or accident that caused long-term memory effects, learning disability, lack of interest or distraction while studying, etc. However, no matter the reason, it is essential to improve a child’s memory retention to get good results and develop a child’s cognitive function.
And although having a sharp memory is not something that every child is born with, it is something that you can help your child develop like any other skills with proper strategies and practice. This blog will cover some of the proven research-backed learning strategies you can work on to increase the memory retention of your child.
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Employ active reading.
The reason why highlighters and sticky notes are so popular is that only a small portion of the billions of pieces of sensory information is let in through our brain’s attention filter. Coloring, highlighting, or underlining something while reading gets the important piece of information through this attention filter.
Make your child use these methods, ask them to jot down important points, use multi-colored markers and sticky notes to list down keynotes. Apart from this, reading out loud and asking questions about the reading material also works for many kids. Active reading strategies can help kids retain the information in mind for a longer period and use the information when required.
Chunk information into smaller bites.
Sometimes, kids find it hard to memorize something or retain a piece of information because the information can be complicated or a bit too much for them to remember. At times like this, keeping a Bite-size amount of information is easier to remember than tackling a lot of information at once. Have you ever noticed important numbers such as social security numbers, phone numbers, ids always have hyphens in them? Because it makes information easier to remember than a long strip of numbers.
Break the information into parts, and help them process it one at a time. You can further organize the information with headings, pointers, lists to make it easier for your child to learn or recall the information later while revising.
Make it multisensory.
The multisensory approach is another great way to help kids retain knowledge in long-term memory and working memory. It further helps them keep the information in mind and use them when needed. You can adopt the multisensory approach of learning by involving your child’s ability to see, hear, and touch in their learning process.
The multisensory approach further helps in developing synaptic connections in your child’s brain that link new knowledge to existing knowledge-creating a web of connections. This web of connection improve neural connections and, therefore, sensory memory, which further help kids to develop memory in the long run.
You can do this by writing down the information that you want your child to retain so that they can read it out loud, say them out loud so your child can hear them, discuss the topic with them so that they remember putting effort in them. These activities help kids involve with the information in more than one way, making it easier to develop the connection with the information.
Ask them to teach you.
Repeating or practising the old information moves the information from the short-term memory to the long-term memory. Having your child explain or teach you what they have learned or understood will help them memorize information more effectively.
You can encourage them to explain it in their own word, and you can even partner them with their sibling or friends and make it a challenge for them to see how much they have remembered and then ask them to go back and review the areas they were unsure about. Teachers often adopt this strategy by pairing their students in class.
Encourage visualisation.
Ask your child to imagine or paint a picture in their mind of what he or she has learned. Props like flashcards that have words images can also help them visualize. Ask them to create their own flashcards and their own stories, events, using that information. For instance, if your child is learning a new word, you can ask them to make their own flashcards or write a story using that word.
Using rhymes and songs in their learning
Brains are wired to remember rhymes, music, and patterns; therefore, any information processed in that format usually stays longer. You can reinforce concepts of converting information into multiple formats to help your child retain information that he or she is finding hard to memorize using these songs, rhymes, and patterns. Help your child to make a rhyme, song, or poem from the information that he or she is finding hard to learn; this will help them improve their memory and recall the information they find trouble learning.
Map out the connections.
Another way to make any difficult topic more memorable to your child is by forming associations and connections between different details. One way to do this is by creating or using fun mnemonics. Mnemonic devices allow you to artificially strengthen your memory by relating one idea to another. Finding ways to connect information helps with forming and retrieving long-term memory. It also helps with working memory, which is what we use to hold and compare new and old memories.
Positive Reinforcement
Everyone likes to be appreciated for their good work, let alone kids. Positive reinforcement is the process of encouraging kids by awarding them for their accomplishments; these accomplishments can involve achieving or completing simple tasks like completing a topic, solving a complicated math problem, solving a worksheet, scoring better on a topic than before, etc.
You can discuss with your child what they want as their reward, so their reward encourages them to perform better and achieve their goal. Positive reinforcement further helps them retain what they have learned and achieved better in their memory.
Frequent practice tests
Another great way to resolve the working memory issues of your child is by helping students to access the same information and lessons repeatedly, so they do not fade away simply, and conducting practice tests is a great way to do it. If you are preparing your child for some exams, you can even use past papers and practice papers and review material to test their progress.
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