Retention (Or Did the Fall Semester Really Happen?)

[Elizabeth in WA]

My search on the subject turned up an excellent past thread.

 

Nonetheless, I am bringing the subject back up partly to vent my misery at trying to prepare my kids for comprehensive final exams in American History and Biology. I always assumed that at least information I made sure they encountered at least 4 different times in reading and free form lectured on would at least sound familiar to my kids. Instead, I get blank stares. How can they forget so entirely that I sometimes wonder if the first half of the year was really just a delusional fantasy on my part?? For ds13, the process of relearning the information is no faster than if, indeed, it were all brand new. Ds15 does seem to have some vague memory allowing faster re-acquisition.

 

Does anyone else have a child who seems to have nearly zero retention? We are doing an organized flash card system for review now and will maintain it indefinitely, but even there I am having trouble moving things back from daily to less frequent review since his memory seems to be ever a blank slate, a chalkboard washed clean each night. (Yet he can learn in 30 seconds dozens of commands for his favorite video game and never forgets those. He can learn a new routine the day before competing in gymnastics and perform it no problems. In fact, he remembers all the routines he used this season and never used the same one twice. :001_huh:)

 

Has anyone successfully trained a child to better retention? I suspect intentionality, attention, and focus may be important keys, but I would love to hear about success stories in teaching a child to hold onto information,

[MamaT]

I don't know, but my 14yo dd is the exact same way. Sometimes I have to just walk away to keep from blowing a gasket. I have decided that she learns what she WANTS to learn. She is proficient at many things - dance, her web-based business, etc. I have decided I must convince her that doing well on her schoolwork and really digesting it is worth her time, not something to just "get done."

[MtnTeaching]

My ds 14yo sees something once and it is as if it is burned into his memory.

 

My dd 12yo on the other hand... Math is especially frustrating. It just goes "bye bye". Her retention is very bad. Starting over multiple times is common around here.

 

She is dyslexic which I know can be part of the problem, but it boggles my mind that she just did two performances of the musical "Alice in Wonderland" last week, playing multiple (4!) parts and singing and dancing in almost every song with no problems.

 

I wish long division, fractions, and spelling were that easy for her!:D

[April in CA]

Hi Elizabeth,

No profound words of wisdom here, but a suggestion. Since your ds is very physical (gymnastics, etc) and has great muscle memory for those things, have you tried making math a physical experience? Can he jump on a trampoline and review math facts or move around as he is working through the steps of an algebra problem? Can he talk to you as he is doing the problems, telling you what he needs to do next, etc? My mover and shaker always learned his Awana verses, etc, better and faster is he could pace while reviewing. Just a thought, hope it helps!

Blessings,

April

 

ETA: oops! I saw flashcards and thought math! But the moving and reviewing would work even better for history and biology, which rely so heavily on memorization!

[klmama]

I had a friend once whose ds could not remember or even really understand history or science info unless he acted it out. They spent the evenings reenacting his history readings, pretending to be parts of cells, etc. That was the only way it stuck in his brain.