How do you get/help your children to retain what they learn?

[plain jane]

I have not been getting adequate sleep lately, which has resulted in a loss of clarity of thought so I hope I can get my question across properly. :o

 

What I would like to know is how you are able to get your children to retain the information that you are teaching them, especially in content areas. My kids seem to retain their math knowledge as well as language arts (grammatical terms, parsing, diagramming) but they seem to lack retention in history and science and I don't know how to change this.

 

For example, last year we spent the entire year studying physics. We spent probably 2-3 months covering forces and motion. We covered many terms and concepts and reviewed weekly and I would say that knowledge really stuck with them for some time- even up to the end of the year when the program we were using happened to have unit tests that I forgot to issue so I used them as year end tests instead. :D Today, I ask my older kids what Newton's laws of motion are and I got 2 out of the 3 from my 11yo and blank stares (and a panic in her eye) from my 8yo, who at least remembers who Newton was and that she did in fact learn the 3 laws but now no longer has a clue. I just wanted them to remember them, kwim?

 

Last month the kids studied the water cycle. They had it forwards, backwards, inside out. They diagrammed it, experimented with it, made a model. I asked them every week to explain it to me. Even my 6yo seem to have a good grasp. Now that we are 3 different topics later.... the information is there but they (8 and 6) waffle on the proper terms (accumulation, condensation) although if given enough time they will get them correct. Give it another month and I figure that what they learned about the water cycle will be ... well, a thing of the past. :rolleyes:

 

I know when I first started homeschooling I heard a lot of talk about PS testing and kids studying for the test and then promptly forgetting everything they learned once they took the test. I understand what people are alluding to but at least the kids are taking the initiative to study the information and review their work. That's something, isn't it? (or maybe not).

 

I would like to review everything on a regular basis but reality is I don't always remember and things like that are not built in to the programs I use (there's a bit of it in TOG but not that much). Another example would be our study of the Persian Wars last year and the Peloponnesian War. Dd, then 10, and I spent weeks reading about these wars and discussing them. She made up a poster sized map showing movement of the armies and where each battle was fought. She could walk you through them play by play and name all the key participants and main locations. She described in great detail the Battle of Salamis and the motives that led to the war between the Greeks themselves. This year? :lol: I consider it fortunate she remembers there are people called Greeks. :blink: Ok, not quite so bad LOL but she can't tell you in any sort of detail what happened in the Battle of Salamis. I asked her just now what a phalanx is and got, "it was a way one of the ancient civilizations, I think Greek or Romans, organized their army." Hmmmm. My 8yo, OTOH, is like, "huh? Greeks??" :willy_nilly: SHe is currently rereading D'Aulaire's Greek Myths before we continue our Roman studies. LOL

 

Obviously kids won't remember everything. Some things, like her (dd11) current studies of the natural cycles (specifically the carbon and nitrogen cycles) I can't seem to get to stick no matter how hard I try to pound them into her. :confused:

 

But how do I motivate her to learn these things? Sure, she did the diagram in her sketches and wrote a one page write up on the carbon cycle. Great, right? Well, 48 hours later, I ask her to tell me about the carbon cycle and all I get is, "uhh, ummm, hmmm, uh." Oooookay. I guess that didn't stick at all. Perhaps this isn't foundational knowledge and the world isn't going to implode because my 11yo has zero interest in the carbon cycle but it makes me feel like we wasted 2 science classes on something that she forgot in less time than it took her to copy a diagram out of a book.

 

Back to my original question- how do you get your children to retain things in content areas? What do you consider a reasonable amount of retention? Are you a wonder mom who does continual review throughout the year? Am I supposed to be doing so but didn't get the memo? Would periodic testing help with this? Say, tell her I will test her on everything we've covered so far and if she studies and gets __% or better she gets ____ (money, toy, whatever motivates her)? Are you just happy that you covered the material, and if you are, at what point will that no longer be sufficient? At what age/grade do you feel kids need to start retaining things better?

 

My head is swimming with thoughts and I'm exhausted from a long day -_- I hope this makes sense to someone and that you will be willing to share your thoughts.

[regentrude]

For example, last year we spent the entire year studying physics. We spent probably 2-3 months covering forces and motion. We covered many terms and concepts and reviewed weekly and I would say that knowledge really stuck with them for some time- even up to the end of the year when the program we were using happened to have unit tests that I forgot to issue so I used them as year end tests instead. :D Today, I ask my older kids what Newton's laws of motion are and I get 2/3 from my 11yo and blank stares (and a panic in her eye) from my 8yo, who at least remembers who Newton was and that she did in fact learn the 3 laws but now no longer has a clue.

 

 

What do you mean by "learn the three laws"? Memorize them? Recite them? Or understand and apply to everyday situations and practice exercises? Could she still do the latter, if she can not do the former?

 

Last month the kids studied the water cycle. They had it forwards, backwards, inside out. They diagrammed it, experimented with it, made a model. I asked them every week to explain it to me. Even my 6yo seem to have a good grasp. Now that we are 3 different topics later.... the information is there but they (8 and 6) waffle on the proper terms (accumulation, condensation) although if given enough time they will get them correct.

 

How much are you focusing on conceptual understanding, and how much on memorization of terms and vocabulary?

With kids of this age, I would not worry about vocabulary - because vocabulary itself is not science. I would talk about concepts. Surely your kids will not forget that water evaporates, that it rains, that you need a force to accelerate an object, that something pushes back as hard on you as you push on it. That's the important stuff, not which number Newton's law it is, or what the precise words are humans use to describe the phenomenon.

They will forget the words, the will forget the formulation of Newton's Laws that they memorized - but these are not important, not at their ages!

 

Back to my original question- how do you get your children to retain things in content areas? What do you consider a reasonable amount of retention? Are you a wonder mom who does continual review throughout the year? Am I supposed to be doing so but didn't get the memo? Would periodic testing help with this? Say, tell her I will test her on everything we've covered so far and if she studies and gets __% or better she gets ____ (money, toy, whatever motivates her)? Are you just happy that you covered the material, and if you are, at what point will that no longer be sufficient? At what age/grade do you feel kids need to start retaining things better?

 

 

At the age before high school, I do not worry about content retention and vocabulary memorization at all. It is not important to me. We do not "review", we do not test. What is important to me is to wake excitement and interest, and to create a background of general knowledge, both in science and history, on which I can then build systematic study in the high school years. I want to instill an atmosphere of scientific thinking; my kids should grow up with the understanding that natural phenomena have explanations and that we can find out the answers to our "why" questions. THAT is my primary goal. Any individual fact is unimportant.

Teaching the "carbon cycle" to an 8 year old would never have occurred to me. We do no formal science program before high school, are purely interest led, discuss concepts and research topics, but do not test vocabulary or memory of facts.

 

We fared very well with this approach. Btw, both of us parents are physics professors, so it is not that we, as a family, do not value science.

 

So, this may not help you make your children retain content information any better - but it may help you not to worry about it.

[Critterfixer]

My mother (who homeschooled me) and I were talking about this the other night, and she said that she felt children were rather like sponges. You can put a lot in, and wring a lot out, but the sponge gets pretty dry in between times. Kids are leaky. You can review and re-teach, and wring a little more out, but the child is still going to lose a good bit of what goes in, an retain some that you can't get out, just like you can't wring all the water out of a sponge. Some of what you have taught isn't there, some of it is there, just not within easy reach.

 

From your post it looks to me as if you are exposing your children to a lot of fantastic information in fantastic ways. What you are doing is building the foundation for future learning of their own. You may not always see it, you may not always be able to document it (information may not be on recall) but the foundation is there all the same. They are going to get the information again, and I think, from what you have done so far, they are going to know what to do with it when they see it.

I don't think you need to knock yourself out with review. Some review of what you feel to be the most important things from the study would not be overkill, and with the older child getting used to the cumulative review "test" won't be a bad thing, but don't try to get too caught up in the details of what they have been working on.

[Momof3littles]

I agree with regentrude. My DH is a PhD chemist, and I have a heavy bio background in a healthcare field. We take a similar approach with our kids.

 

I do understand where you are coming from, because I periodically freak out when my DS1 forgets things we've covered in history. I periodically have a freak out about it and wonder if I'm just doing an awful job. In fact, I think I've asked here about whether DS1 should be able to answer questions in the SOTW AGs from last year, etc. The overwhelming answer was, "no, and he'll get it and retain it as you loop back through and build on it again."

[Mrs Twain]

I think content knowledge is extremely important. Read The Knowledge Deficit (Hirsch) and perhaps you will agree.

 

I have had some of the same experiences as the OP. It is not necessarily difficult to teach the original lessons and have the kids learn the lessons that day or week or quarter. However, retaining the information long-term is a challenge. I will share what I am doing to try to build long-term knowledge. However, my children are still young, and therefore I can not predict how the results will be!

 

First, I do quite a bit of memory work. I have one master binder. Every day we spend about 15 minutes on memory work. The kids practice their Awana verses with me, and then I review academic content as below.

 

For history memory work, I am having the kids memorize the big points in each section of Everything You Need to Know About World History Homework, from MP's 200 Questions About American History, and various other selections (excerpts from and facts about the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, list of wars of US, maybe one or two short speeches, etc.).

 

For science memory work, I have my kids copy about 3-5 of the main principles from our weekly lesson and draw pictures to illustrate them. Then they file them in their notebooks under the appropriate tab (biology, physics, etc.). Periodically, we review all of the principles in one section. I often find that my kids have completely fogotten something that they used to know. In that case, I try to spark their memories to remember the principles. I also plan to make tests for the end of the year in science. They keep the same notebook from year to year so that they keep reviewing the former lessons. We use BFSU which works well because it constantly cycles through and reviews old topics.

 

For geography and other topics, I do something similar.

 

Also for history I do overviews for world and American history every year. For the first half of the year I do world history, This includes reading an overview book (spine) as well as historical fictions books. For the second half of the year, we read an American history overview book plus historical fiction. We repeat this cycle each year. I realize that when they are older (maybe upper middle or high school) that they will not be able to cover everything every year. However, I think this is the best approach when they are young (as opposed to 4 year cycles) because I want my kids to continually review and relearn the information so that hopefully some of it will stick. I think that only having my young kids cover history information every four years would not result in a great amount of retention. This is the same approach that Epi Kardia uses for history, btw.

 

In addition I have my kids do lapbooks. We do history, science, and civics lapbooks. When we come across a subject in our reading about which they have done a lapbook, the kids pull out the old lapbook and review. For example, my kids made lapbooks on New World Explorers. Lately, our American history book covered some of the explorers, so my son pulled out his explorer lapbook and reviewed what he had written. This is great for retention.

 

Another thing I do is to have the kids write some of their composition assignments on history. Since they save all of their final drafts in one notebook, upon rereading these compositions (which they occasionally do for fun), they review the information.

[homeschoolkitty]

a very wise mama told me a month or so ago about history and retention that we are not teaching really for them to memorize and tell us back a bunch of facts, we are teaching them how to learn. and that is more important than content.

No matter the curriculum you use, how many times you cycle through a period of History, The first time around you are teaching how to learn....

 

=o)

 

k

 

Ps. Just like my father (business owner) said, he does not hire college graduates because they know. bur rather because they have learned how to solve problems, and the rest they'll pick up on the job.

[PeterPan]

Kids retain what they give a rip about. It's not really something you can make happen by brute force, no matter how interesting the experience. It's why for some things it's better not to try too hard. You know what those words mean, which means you learned them yourself at some point, when they interested you, when you were ready. You want to give them broad exposures, but I think my dd learns more from what she does for herself than from anything formal I assign, mercy.

[PeterPan]

a very wise mama told me a month or so ago about history and retention that we are not teaching really for them to memorize and tell us back a bunch of facts, we are teaching them how to learn. and that is more important than content.

 

 

Ok, I'll skew this. I think this is something where WTM is a bit off, because it sets us up with this paradigm and says shove them through, you're teaching them HOW TO LEARN. Well NO, they actually already know how to learn. It's just some kids don't learn that way. A lot of learning works better when we teach the horse how to drink and take him to water puddles so he can find the one he likes, rather than shoving his nostrils in and saying "Drink, cuz I said so!"

 

WTM says you're teaching them how to learn when you teach them to outline history, narrate, blah blah, but I don't think it's true. There are whole classes of people out there who learn totally different ways, by drinking in tons of material and sifting it in their minds till they come to conclusions. It's not always so linear, sequential, and tidy as creating an outline, summarizing, and telling us the 4 terms you learned.

[vmsurbat]

What I would like to know is how you are able to get your children to retain the information that you are teaching them, especially in content areas. My kids seem to retain their math knowledge as well as language arts (grammatical terms, parsing, diagramming) but they seem to lack retention in history and science and I don't know how to change this.

 

 

First off, I agree with quite a bit of what Regentrude wrote about not worrying about it. In the elementary years, a child's focus should be on learning math and language arts as they build on one another.

 

Science and history do not build on one another in the same way that math/language arts do at the elementary level. There IS in an interconnectedness with science and history, but children do not have enough breadth of knowledge, experience, or wisdom to really see it yet. So, in the elementary years, you are going for exposure, broad and deep, knowing that your children will be able to build on that in future years, with future revisiting of the topics/subjects.

 

IMO, it will be hard to keep drilling facts about what your children have learned. I do have several suggestions, though, for aiding and encouraging retention:

 

1. For facts, you can play games which will help cement the "big picture" facts (but not generally a whole lot of indepth meaning). Board games like Chronology or Timeline help with history. "10 Days in xxxx" help with geography. Science is a little tougher, but you can either make your own with the topics you've covered or invest in some of those "trivia" one subject decks. Peruse a Rainbow Resource catalog and see what is out there.

 

You can also have engaging factoid books (Usborne books were the biggies when my children were young) around for free reading/browsing. My kids loved all the interesting factoid bits that they picked up on their own. I never assigned these books as "school" but if you have children who can read and are given the opportunity to read, plentiful books reintroduce/reinforce all kinds of facts in an an engaging, meaningful manner.

 

2. For meaningful retention of concepts, I suggest real-life experience (to the degree you are able--very limited for most of us) and narration.

 

We learn best when we can peg new learning onto something we already know--we see and make connections with our knowledge that way. One idea leads into another. Real-life experience is a great peg to build from. A trip to the ocean will make all subsequent learning about oceans/sea life that much richer, deeper, broader.

 

Science experiments are a kind of forced real-life experience, and to take your example of the water cycle, it seems the children did some experiments (good Mom!).

 

To quote you:

 

Now that we are 3 different topics later.... the information is there but they (8 and 6) waffle on the proper terms (accumulation, condensation) although if given enough time they will get them correct. Give it another month and I figure that what they learned about the water cycle will be ... well, a thing of the past.

bolded and italics mine

 

The bolded part says they learned. Bravo! Success!!

 

However, I disagree with your italicized assessment--when they have a real need or experience related to the water cycle, they will remember there is so much more. They may not remember all the details, but they will remember there ARE details and will either: dredge it out of their own memories or look it up. I imagine for the water cycle, they'd look it up! Unless your children were thrilled with learning about the water cycle, it makes sense that it would fade from the instant recall portion of their mind. This is what we ALL do with the wealth of information we know. None of us have instant recall for everything we've ever learned. However, as their mom and teacher, you can help them make connections: eg. the importance of caring for the environment because what goes in the ground seeps down to water tables and enters the water cycle.

 

By narration, I mean the ability to formulate ideas and connections in their own mind and tell them to you and/or others. I am a big fan of Charlotte-Mason style narration across all content areas for the elementary child. (Note: there are many aspects to narration and, IMO, WTM-narration lacks imagination. If you do a google search on CM narration, you will get a bigger, broader, richer picture of what I mean by narration). The simple premise behind narration is the same one that we've all experienced: what we can teach, we know. And by teach, I don't mean robotic parroting of terms, but actually being able to explain things.

 

A child explaining the water cycle will NOT sound like a schoolbook, using proper terms all of the time, but he will own/possess the information he shares.

 

Anyway, it seems to me that you are doing a good job of bringing a wealth of educational material to your children. My best advice is to relax (said from the standpoint that I'm almost done with the home-education journey--youngest one just got accepted to university of choice. Yippee!). Keep on with the 3Rs--your best effort is spent there in the elementary years. Encourage your children to enjoy learning about the world. Resist the temptation to keep testing them on everything they've learned. Imagine worrying about their physical growth, testing weight/height/blood chemistry after every meal. Seems ridiculous, doesn't it? Rest assured, they are being educationally nourished and are growing, but you won't see those results for years.

 

HTH,

[texasmama]

I also agree with regentrude. My goal in content areas is to expose my children to a lot of information about history and science through the younger years. They will encounter this information many times in the future. I think of it as providing a framework on which to hang future information. When they hear about Greek myths or Martin Luther in the future, they may not recall details, but the names and concepts will be familiar, and their knowledge will build from there. They remember what is important and interesting to them. This does mean that one of my sons can give you a pretty good tutorial on weather-related topics. The other son is a Greek history sponge. My youngest dd rattles off facts about animals. I don't test them at all. I don't expect them to memorize and retain the types of information that you mention in your post. Memorization for us happens in math and language arts, not science and history.

[Chris in VA]

I like the drinking horse analogy, but I think horses are born knowing how to drink ;). Kids are born knowing how to learn, they just may need help learning how to organize all that learning! That's why we put things in a sequence for them, teach outlining, give "pegs," etc.

I am a "facts are important" person, as well as a "get a feeling for the times and lives of the people in a culture" person, so I do dates AND historical fiction (for example).

 

ITA that kids seem to retain what they use, and what is important to them. I also believe that activities that allow emotions and connections to be made seem to cement some material. For some relational kids, doing something WITH Mom or Dad or friends makes the content memorable ("Remember when we took that hike to see the Lady Slippers? You got all muddy when you found them under the leaf loam"--so kid remembers they grow in the woods...). For some, it's the feeling they had when they did the activity ("I didn't want to touch the cornstarch and water b/c it was slimy--and I had such fun saying Non-newtonian colloidal suspension!"). For some, it's a visual clue that cements it--like photos, or diagrams (I can still see the diagram of a cell in my text, for some reason!). Or making a comparison between two things helps--dd had just seen The King's Speech and understood the abdication of the king, and then heard about Pope Benedict and was able to remember it's been 600 years since a Pope has retired or left (or whatever).

 

Mrs. Twain said

Also for history I do overviews for world and American history every year. For the first half of the year I do world history, This includes reading an overview book (spine) as well as historical fictions books. For the second half of the year, we read an American history overview book plus historical fiction. We repeat this cycle each year. I realize that when they are older (maybe upper middle or high school) that they will not be able to cover everything every year.

 

Bold mine.

 

Well, you aren't covering everything now, are you? :D I am not at all being critical, I'm just saying you've gleaned what you feel is important, based on

your own criteria. We all do that in our learning, even children.

 

I love the 4 year cycle, and I love living a life where learning takes place in multiple arenas. I think I miss being able to structure those arenas' content thru homeschooling, but there ya go. I also miss the unstructured time when lessons were done, b/c h'sing is much more efficient, and dd could add to her own knowledge thru experiencing the world and reading more.

 

And now I'm rambling, as usual. More coffee....

 

Would it help you feel more settled, OP, if you had some sort of basic criteria, some baseline of information, that, if your kids retained, would make you feel better about their education?

[thundersweet]

Kids retain what they give a rip about. It's not really something you can make happen by brute force, no matter how interesting the experience. It's why for some things it's better not to try too hard. You know what those words mean, which means you learned them yourself at some point, when they interested you, when you were ready. You want to give them broad exposures, but I think my dd learns more from what she does for herself than from anything formal I assign, mercy.

 

 

I agree 100%! At least it's seems to be that way in my household.

[8filltheheart]

I was going to reply until I read Regentrude's response. Her answer is basically the same answer that I would post. Foundation and exposure to concepts are my objectives. Upper level courses will tie them all together and attach correct terminology.

[persephone43]

 

At the age before high school, I do not worry about content retention and vocabulary memorization at all. It is not important to me. We do not "review", we do not test. What is important to me is to wake excitement and interest, and to create a background of general knowledge, both in science and history, on which I can then build systematic study in the high school years. I want to instill an atmosphere of scientific thinking; my kids should grow up with the understanding that natural phenomena have explanations and that we can find out the answers to our "why" questions. THAT is my primary goal. Any individual fact is unimportant.

Teaching the "carbon cycle" to an 8 year old would never have occurred to me. We do no formal science program before high school, are purely interest led, discuss concepts and research topics, but do not test vocabulary or memory of facts.

 

I agree with this. At that age, memorization should be for things like math facts, grammar and spelling rules, etc. Keep content areas like science and history fun, exciting, more lighthearted. They will do much better later on in high school when memorization of the laws of physics or the exact dates of battles for example are expected. And they will not approach theses subjects with dread but excitement because they remember it in stories or fun science experiments, exploration and crafts etc.

[Mrs Twain]

I agree partially with many of you. Of course the kids will not remember every fact that you teach them.

 

However, if your objective is to teach children only skills and "how to learn", then you may be following in the path of John Dewey and the progressive educational philosophy. The progressives took over public school education decades ago which is one of the main reasons for its decline.

 

WTM goes back to ages past including what public schools used to do before the progressives took over. I don't follow WTM exactly, but I agree with many of its general principles because the relevant research supports it (i.e. The Knowledge Deficit and other Hirsch writings). Content knowledge (in addition to skills) is an important foundation for things such as reading comprehension and generally becoming well educated.

 

Of course a real world job has job specific information which one will learn on the job. That is not a reason to jettison all content knowledge for the younger ages.

[8filltheheart]

I agree partially with many of you. Of course the kids will not remember every fact that you teach them.

 

However, if your objective is to teach children only skills and "how to learn", then you may be following in the path of John Dewey and the progressive educational philosophy. The progressives took over public school education decades ago which is one of the main reasons for its decline.

 

WTM goes back to ages past including what public schools used to do before the progressives took over. I don't follow WTM exactly, but I agree with many of its general principles because the relevant research supports it (i.e. The Knowledge Deficit and other Hirsch writings). Content knowledge (in addition to skills) is an important foundation for things such as reading comprehension and generally becoming well educated.

 

Of course a real world job has job specific information which one will learn on the job. That is not a reason to jettison all content knowledge for the younger ages.

 

 

I am certainly not advocating jettisoning content knowledge. The difference is the focus. For example, I could careless if a 6 or 8 yo child remembers the term "photosynthesis" weeks later b/c my goal would be for them to remember that plants use the energy from the sun to create food for itself. The "what" is the content knowledge that I want them to remember long term, not the terminology.

[regentrude]

I agree partially with many of you. Of course the kids will not remember every fact that you teach them.

 

However, if your objective is to teach children only skills and "how to learn", then you may be following in the path of John Dewey and the progressive educational philosophy. The progressives took over public school education decades ago which is one of the main reasons for its decline.

...

Content knowledge (in addition to skills) is an important foundation for things such as reading comprehension and generally becoming well educated.

 

I never said I do not teach my children content.

I said I do not make them memorize vocabulary and facts. HUGE difference.

They learn content despite me not requiring rote memorization and testing them.

 

I teach physics at a university, and my students are not required to memorize a single formula or definition. They are required to understand concepts, be able to explain phenomena, solve problems - that IS content.

So, whether an 8 y/o can recite Newton's Laws or not is not even a measure of meaningful learning; the thing that matters is the conceptual understanding of force creating acceleration and action= recaction (which, btw, is a very poor and misleading word choice).

[Mrs Twain]

I have not been getting adequate sleep lately, which has resulted in a loss of clarity of thought so I hope I can get my question across properly. :o

 

What I would like to know is how you are able to get your children to retain the information that you are teaching them, especially in content areas. My kids seem to retain their math knowledge as well as language arts (grammatical terms, parsing, diagramming) but they seem to lack retention in history and science and I don't know how to change this.

 

 

 

Jane,

I think you are doing a great job covering concepts. I also think you are correct in being concerned about retention in content areas because the data and research show that this is important.

 

If you want to add something simple, I would suggest making a memory work binder. Just get a 3-ring binder with looseleaf paper, and use tabs to make sections for different subjects. Each time you finish studying a topic, think of one or several points which you would like your kids to remember. Jot them down under the appropriate tab.

 

You don't need to go back to prior topics and make lists. I think you could just start now and build it up going forward. Or else you could go back and review some of the things you covered in the past, writing up principles to review.

 

I have a memory binder organized like this, and I consider it to be one of the most valuable parts of my homeschool program. I spend about 10-15 minutes every day reviewing some of the principles from the binder with my kids. For review, I will spend a week or so on one subject. Alternatively, I might keep a bookmark in it and review whatever is next each day, cycling through the binder.

 

Many people think memory work is awful. It gives them bad feelings since they think it may qualify as "rote memorization" or one of those love of learning killing kinds of activities. On the contrary, most kids are excellent at memory work and rather enjoy it. I didn't believe it until I tried it with my own kids.

 

That is my two cents regarding devising an answer to your original question.

All the best to you!

[Ellie]

You keep giving it to them, and you are happy with whatever they *do* retain, even if you can't seem to draw it out of them later. Everything is *in there* somewhere, and it will show up when you least expect it.

[stm4him]

I equate learning with retention. I may have learned things in school but if I can't tell you anything about it then I am still ignorant of it in terms of it being of any real use to me or anyone else. The way you retain things is through memorization from repetition over time. If you can remember something even if you don't fully understand it you will likely eventually gain the understanding through your exposure to it in the world (or through books) but if you understand something but don't memorize it then it will likely be lost and it will make no difference whether you understood it once or not. I always felt like such a loser in piano because after 10 years of piano I couldn't play anything from memory or on the spot. I put my kids in Suzuki violin and they could play many songs from memory in a very short time because they played the same set of songs over and over to mastery and kept reviewing them constantly. They've been off this year because of my son's diagnosis but it will be interesting to see how much they will remember when we pick it back up.

 

I was reading Jane Eyre last night and the girls in the boarding school spent an hour every day reciting and study time in the evening memorizing the next days' lessons. Memorization used to be a HUGE part of education. We use Classical Conversations to guide our memory work but you can do it with any program. You just have to take the time to pick out what you want them to memorize and then review it continually. At CC we have 24 weeks of memory work in 3 cycles. So when we reviewed week 20 this week in our current cycle I also reviewed week 20 of last cycle so that we don't forget that. Also, there is some material that gets covered the same way every year including our timeline, math memory work, and the grammar for grades 4-6 (which can be trickled down to the younger ones). They are learning so much this time through the timeline but I would have no assurance that it would stick if we weren't going to do it again next year. Through doing it every year over the course of several years (for my little ones it will be 9+ years) I am much more confident that it will stick with them.

 

The goal should be "stick in the sand". Do they know it well enough to teach it with just a piece of paper and pencil? Will they be able to teach it to your grandchildren? If they cannot verbalize it to anyone they haven't really learned it. I can tell you are doing a fabulous job of having them explain their learning to you. I think the only piece you can add is just reviewing the main things regularly somehow. You can use a program or just pull facts and definitions or lists from what you are already doing. You can use a card box or binder or whatever to make a system. Lapbooks and notebooks that they can look at periodically are also excellent for this. They can't and won't remember everything so one must be very selective about what you require them to know long term.

 

To me one is not educated because they have been exposed to things. They are educated if they have mastered material to the point of teaching it, which is why I'm so thankful for the opportunity to re-educate myself through homeschooling. I'm proud of myself when I can explain some history concept to my husband weeks after we learned it because I never could do that before. And the only way I'll remember that history concept is that I'm going to read it again next year.

 

I disagree with the notion that vocabulary is not important. I think a lot of the problem in school was trying to memorize new terms while trying to understand concepts and express those concepts with the proper vocabulary in a matter of a few days or weeks. It would have been easier to master some of the vocabulary early and then have time to gain understanding before being expected to verbalize it. I'm hoping getting some of that out of the way when they are younger will make upper level studies less intimidating when they are older. I find my kids gain confidence in their knowledge and try harder to understand things when they have already memorized the words, dates, or places that go with the concepts.

 

One more tidbit which you probably know is that songs help tremendously! Some of the memory work we didn't retain as well from last year was due to not having a song. This year we have a song for everything and they are relearning last years memory work with the songs I found. They are grasping it much better this way and songs are easy to sing anytime for review as they pop into your head. The more you can put to song the better.

[lillybell]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. I used to worry so much about this with my oldest daughter when she was young, worried that she wasn't retaining the information, worried that I was doing it all wrong. This to the point that I was constantly looking for different ways of teaching the same thing and spent much wasted time going over the same thing in different ways. Sure, they will pick up on some stuff but not everything is going to stay in their brain. I can't remember it all so I shouldn't expect them to either. Instead now what I do is just make sure that they grasp the bigger picture on history. History is hard because so many events, names, and dates are involved it is hard to piece it all together and keep it all straight. I try to teach it but then stand back and have them see the bigger picture without so many dates just general time periods and the main people that were involved. If they can give a brief summary and show an understanding then I am happy. Sometimes we tend to expect too much when instead we should really give them a pat on the back and give them some words of encouragement and praise for their efforts.

[SarahW]

My $0.02:

 

If you want your kid to remember facts to recall them on demand you have to at least make "crib sheets" with the key terms and review them periodically. At least once a month. For history, this would mean reviewing the notebook pages/lapbook/timeline you've made.

 

But, even if they don't recall on demand, the WTM system of cycling through everything three times means that even if they don't immediately recall facts, the repetition will push the information deep into the memory banks. So when they are asked to learn it again, it will just be a matter of quick review and refresh. When the kid gets to college and the prof announces that Newtons Laws of Physics will be a question on the final exam he'll just have to look the information up, read it a few times to himself, and then wander down to see what's happening in the Student Union get a head start on his other subjects.

[happypamama]

I tend to think of education in content areas in the young grades (even up through about grade 6 or 7) as being about exposure, rather than needing them to remember every little fact. For instance, we did the jello-candy cell model and a labeled paper cell a few years ago, and we talked about the functions of the various cell parts. It was pretty funny to hear my 3yo yelling "MITOCHONDRIA," and for a while afterward, they remembered the various parts and functions. I'm not sure they remember those details now (although DD just surprised me and remembered what the powerhouse of the cell is called), but that wasn't my main goal. My main goals were to interest them in how a cell works and to give them an idea of how the various parts work together. The next time they study it, some of the terms will be familiar, and they'll add more layers to their understanding. Same with history. Interest and excitement are what matter to me most at this point.

 

I do find that reinforcing things in different ways helps with retention, but I agree with other people who said that kids will remember what they find interesting. And my kids tend to have a few niches where they're really, really interested and know a lot about those subjects.