Looking for some memorization techniques ...

[Luanne]

... what are some things you do to help your children memorize things?

[Pata]

Bump, because I need help with this too...

[creekmom]

I recently bought a book called Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. It is loaded with ideas to help kids/adults memorize important facts. It's divided by subject area. I found it on Amazon for less than $5.00 (including shipping). There are several books out there that focus on mnemonic devices to help you remember things.

[OrganicAnn]

If you mean memorizing a poem or something like that, then just reciting the poem every day usually will do it.

[GraciebytheBay]

I find that my kids and I memorize well when we put something to music. They all learned our address and phone number as well as scripture and some math facts this way. Of course, now when they need to recall certain things, they need to sing it!

[walkermamaof4]

We too like music or at least an audio cd. So we bought Pudewa's cd accompaniment to Poetry Memorization - A Linguistic Approach. And I just ordered a cd of Robert Louis Stevenson's Child's Garden of verses. We are learning the Preamble by youtubes School house rock version. For some things though, we just add them to our daily list and it says the child must say it to me 5 times every day. We are hoping to begin the review system recommended on Simply Charlotte Mason so the things we learn stay for good. We memorized a lot this year and had fun doing it. Oh, I record them on video saying it. That way they can watch and see how they present themselves. We bought a flip video to make this super easy.

[Tracy]

Usually we just read it once per day, and Grasshopper will know it in a couple of weeks. But when we decide to tackle something a bit longer or more challenging, we play this game.

 

1. Write what you are memorizing on a board.
   
2. Read it once.
   
3. Roll a die. The number rolled is the number of words that you erase. The person who rolled gets to choose which words get erased.
   
4. Say it again.
   
5. Continue as many times as you need. If we have more than one person doing the memorizing, we pass the die around and make sure everyone gets a turn to roll at least one time.
   

We may do this several days in a row. If we have something with more than one verse or stanza, we will memorize just one part at a time.

 

Another game that I have done with children (though not with mine, because they are not old enough, yet): Type the first letter of each word on a slip of paper. Make a different slip for each line. Tape them in random order to the wall or a board and have the kids try to put them in the right order. (So, for example, if you were memorizing the Pledge of Allegiance, you would have the following: IPATTF OTUSOA ATTRFWIS ONUGI WLAJFA)

 

HTH,

Tracy