Tip of the Week: Improving your Child’s Memory through Meaning

Terry Hershey tells a story in his latest book, This is the Life, in which a first grade teacher asked her students to name one or more of the seven wonders of the world. Student answers came quickly like The Great Wall of China, The Grand Canyon, The Empire State building, etc. One student was silent, though. She said, “I guess I didn’t understand the question,” since she hadn’t come up with any of the “right answers.” What were her answers? They were, “to see, to hear, to taste, to touch, to smell, to love, to belong.”

Those were the wonders that were relevant to her. They were imbued with meaning. They were the channels by which her world came alive to her.

We are more likely to remember something when it’s meaningful to us.   

Remember teaching long division? At the elementary level, there were four or five steps depending on the curriculum you were using: divide, multiple, subtract, compare, and bring down.

How about dividing fractions? Just invert and multiply.

How about order of operations? Just memorize the order.

If the above is taught devoid of meaning, the likelihood of your student remembering the lesson is not strong.

Add meaning to  the lesson and you increase the chances the lesson will be grasped and retained.

Here are some ideas for adding meaning to some common elementary math concepts:

• If it’s a story problem, make your student part of the story.
• If it’s a concept, use physical objects first, then representations of these objects (illustrated objects as found in most math books), and finally abstract symbols (numbers).
• Build on concepts your student is likely to grasp quickly or knows already. An example of this is using the “alligator’s mouth” to teach less than greater than concepts when comparing numbers. The alligator’s mouth < opens to the larger number since alligators are always hungry!
• If teaching division, explain that division is simply separating into equal groups as indicated by the divisor of the problem.  
• If teaching the sequence of the order of operations, teach using the acronym “please excuse my dear Aunt Sally” (parenthesis first followed by exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and finally subtraction).

Next time we’ll look at another factor that if implemented will likely increase your student’s memory of what you’ve just taught them.

Thanks for reading!

Curt Bumcrot, MRE

HELP  is a local resource that helps identify learning disabilities often resulting in trouble with storing and recalling information. We encourage you to contact them at 503-635-3389 to discuss ways they may be of help to you.