How to Boost Your Child's Memory

There are a lot of ways to boost your child’s memory. When kids can’t remember information it can be stressful for your child and for you! I wrote a previous post on this topic and added it to this new post so there are tons of ideas to help your child remember!

Like us, kids have to remember so many things!!! They have to remember steps to get ready before and after school, their daily schedules, appointments, what supplies they need, plus all of their school knowledge that they need to remember that carries over from year to year!

They have to remember their multiplication table, the different parts of a story, the continents, the steps of long division, the rules of our language and how to spell those tricky words, how many days are in each month, and the list goes on and on!!! How much can a brain take! These memory techniques and methods will help your child be more successful and they’ll help you, too!

Boost Your Child’s Memory

Association – In association, your child needs to make a connection or association from one item to something else. For example, when a child has a character named Isabell and they have an Aunt Isabell, then that’s an association. I use an association when I meet someone new! I associate them with someone else I know with the same or similar name.

Picture – To picture information your child needs to make a picture of the information in their mind. For example, they can create a picture in their head (or draw one) of what they think a character looks like, acts, etc.

Have your Child Teach You – Based on this quote by Edgar Dale, we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, 50% of what we see and hear, 70% of what we discuss with others, 80% of what we personally experience and 95% of what we teach others, TEACHING is the way to go when possible.

You can have your child teach you the steps of division, the names of the continents, etc. And your child can tell you what memory technique they used to remember the information!

Techniques to Boost your Child’s Memory

Repeating – In repeating, your child simply repeats the information over and over again until they remember the information. Some kids will be able to actually hear their words in their head!

Chunking – In chunking, your child categorizes the information they need to remember. For example, a list of vocabulary words, geography terms, lists of numbers, the states, etc. Your child can group them in a way that they’ll be able to remember – alphabetical, smallest to largest, etc.

Songs and Rhymes: To create a song or rhyme your child puts the information they want to remember into some kind of funny song or rhyme. You can also use a tune from other songs that you know. There are tons of these on the internet for all sorts of topics!

This is a song in the tune of London Bridges for the being verbs:
Am, is, are, was, were, be, been,
have, has, had,
do does, did,
may, can, must, might,
could, should, would,
shall, will, being.

The difference between latitude and longitude:
LAT is FAT because it goes around the equator belt.

The rule for 2 vowels together:
Two vowels go walking, one does the talking the other does the walking (the second one is silent).

Learning Styles and Memory Techniques

Another thing to consider when introducing your child to memory skills is to consider their learning style. A learning style is simply how you learn the best – there are kids who do better with visual learning (pictures or diagrams of information), auditory (listening to information), and Kinesthetic (tactile-touching).

I’ve always just focused on these three main learning styles, but there are also a lot of other ones. Try this test of 20 questions or this test of 10 questions that will give you an idea of your child’s learning style.

I have taken multiple learning styles tests (and I’ve had my students take them), but no matter which test I take, it always comes up with my strength as a visual learner. There’s a ton more of these learning style quizzes on the internet. I definitely think I have learned better with visual representations of information, and my second strength is auditory. If I listen to something over and over, I can hear a recording in my head.

So knowing your child’s learning style strength will help you select the memory strategies that will help them the best, but memory strengths can be different based on the actual information that you have to learn. For example, a child can do best learning a song (auditory) for a topic even though they’re more of a visual learner.

Examples of Learning Styles

A visual learner learns best by viewing the information they want to learn.
Ex. watching a presentation, viewing a graph, flashcards, model, visual, etc.

An auditory learner learns best by listening to the information they want to learn.
Ex. listening to a presentation, saying information out loud, using a voice recorder, etc.

A kinesthetic learner learns best by touching what needs to be learned.
Ex. writing, typing, creating models, making books, physical games, etc.

Ways to Boost Your Child’s Memory

Flashcards – Flashcards can be used for just about anything your child wants to remember – the multiplication table, sight words, spelling words, studying definitions for any kind of terms in reading, science, and social studies, etc.

Sticky Notes/Post-it Notes – Sticky notes/Post-it Notes can be used for a variety of things to remember. I have tons of them! They are used in schools as a reading comprehension strategy! Your child can write notes as they read and stick the sticky notes inside the book.

Post-it notes are good for anything you’d want to remember. You can use flashcards for – notes, memorizing words, definitions, etc. They’re for anything you want to write down and remember! I LOVE Post-it notes and so do the kids at school! I also make the ones above in my Zazzle Store! Additional Amazon Post-it Notes below are also great!

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Writing – Writing information over and over again can help. That’s how I memorized the multiplication table! You can write on anything from notepaper to the back of a cereal box!

Writing and Saying it Out Loud – Writing and saying information out loud can also help. Some children can also hear their own voices in their head after saying something over and over!

More Ways to Boost Your Child’s Memory

Notebooks – A notebook is a great idea to keep track of information that your child needs to remember. A sticky note can get thrown away, but the information in a notebook can be kept forever!

PERSONALIZED PRETTY GREEN AND WHITE Notebook

Highlighter – A highlighter can be used in addition to the other strategies. The highlighter just brightens the words to help your child remember even more! Some kids need a little guidance with this as they tend to highlight all of the text. They’re supposed to highlight the main ideas of their reading.

Record – Recording information instead of taking notes can also be a useful strategy for your child. Your child can record what needs to be memorized, then listen to it, write it, repeat it while reading it, etc.

Even More Ways to Boost Your Child’s Memory

Cornell Notetaking Technique – The Cornell Notetaking technique is my favorite notetaking technique! It’s simply leaving the left column open for a quick summary, with pictures, phrases, words, etc. On the right side is the bulk of the information with spaces between the different topics. This website explains it in detail.

Make an Acronym – An acronym is a great technique to remember information. You can have your child use the first letters of the words or phrases that they need to remember. For example:

HOMES for the Great Lakes. (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Eerie, Superior).

ROY G. BIV for the spectrum colors – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue Indigo, Violet).

Make an Acrostic – An acrostic is similar to an acronym, with the distinction that it consists of a sentence rather than a word. For Example:

PLEASE EXCUSE MY DEAR AUNT SALLY for the order of operations (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiply, Divide, Add, and Subtract).

Never Eat Soggy Waffles for the cardinal directions (North, East, South, West).

Does McDonald’s Sell CheeseBurgers and Shakes? (Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Check that the divisor is larger than your remainder, Bring Down the next number and Start all over again).

This Book Can Help Your Child Remember Spelling RULES!

I have used this book to give my students strategies to remember spelling rules. It helps kids remember the rules in a variety of ways. These are just a couple of examples from the book:

Their and There
Their – He and I are their sons.
There – You’ll find here and there

To, Too, Two
To – Go to the store!
Too – Did you break your tooth, too?
Two -there are two twins

I before E –
I before e except after c or as sounded as “a” as in neighbor or weigh.

Principal and Principle
Your principal is your pal

Additional Books to Help Your Child Remember

Technical Techniques to Boost Your Child’s Memory

Linking – In the Link Method, each word in a list has to be linked with the one following it creating a picture or image in your child’s mind in which you can see the objects or events representing both words. So to remember a list of items, link the first item with the second, the second to the third, and so on.

For example: (to remember what your child has to do when they leave for school)

Backpack and reading book (your child needs to imagine these two items together)
Reading book and math folder (your child needs to imagine these two items together)
Math folder and homework folder (your child needs to imagine these two items together)
Homework folder and pencils (your child needs to imagine these two items together)
Pencils and lunch or lunch money (your child needs to imagine these two items together)

You can use this method for remembering the pieces of a story.

Loci method – To use the Loci system, you create an image of something in 4 different rooms in your house. Pick the rooms counterclockwise that connect to each other. This was my example: The dining room is to the right when I walk into the front door, then I enter the kitchen, the family room and then the formal living room.

An Example of Loci

If you have 4 items on a list to remember, visualize each of them in a different room. Visualize crazy, outlandish pictures. You can have fun as a family coming up with fun outrageous, scenes!

For example, if your child needs to remember what to do when they get home, have them picture a HUGE backpack on the dining room table (meaning to do their homework), then they can walk into the kitchen for a talking glass of milk (meaning to have a snack), then off to the family room and picture a maid vacuuming (meaning to tidy up and then relax until 5). And then they move to the living room where there are a million sticky notes all over which remind them to finish a project, clean their room, start dinner, etc.

This works! I’ve used it to remember things I have to do, what I need to get at the department store, parts of a book I just read, etc!

Post-It Notes Method – this is like the Loci method, but a sticky note is actually put in all 4 of the rooms. It could be parts of a speech, rules of a specific topic, etc.

More Technical Techniques to Boost Your Child’s Memory

Path method – To use the Path method, your child imagines a path and place the items they need to remember along the path. You could use this for what your child needs to do after school. You can actually pick any place with a lot of rooms or areas for this memory technique.

Examples:

Get a snack – visualize a picture of a favorite snack down a path near your house, or favorite spot
Change clothes – visualize a favorite outfit laying on a branch on the path
Do homework – visualize books and a backpack on the path
Watch TV – visualize the tv, computer, etc. down the path, etc.

Everyone remembers in different ways. What works for one child, won’t always help another one. The trick is to try different techniques. Look at the learning styles quiz to see if that helps you decide on the first techniques to try.

Life goes much easier if we take the time to find the techniques that work. Sometimes your child will want to use a variety of techniques depending on what it is they’re trying to remember. If you email me, I can give you suggestions or meet with you in person or Zoom.

How to Boost Your Child’s Memory