Are you looking for strategies to help your students enhance their memory skills? If so, keep reading.
- Provide instructions, explanations, and instructional content in a transparent manner and at an appropriate pace.
- Get the student to practice taking notes for specific information the student needs to remember.
- Teach the student to identify keywords and phrases related to the information to increase long-term memory skills.
- Make sure the student is paying attention to the source of information (e.g., eye contact is being made, hands are free of learning materials, the student is looking at task, etc.).
- Minimize distracting stimuli when information is being presented, the student is studying, etc.
- Separate at several points during the presentation of information to check the student’s comprehension.
- Provide the student one task to perform at a time. Present the next task only when the student has successfully finished the prior task.
- Get the student to memorize the first sentence or line of poems, songs, etc. As the student experiences success, require more to be memorized.
- Teach the student information-gathering skills (e.g., listen carefully, write down essential points, ask for clarification, wait until all information is received before beginning, etc.).
- Get the student to repeat/rephrase directions, explanations, and instructions.
- Minimize the emphasis on competition. Competitive learning activities may cause the student to hurry and begin without listening.
- Give the student environmental signals and prompts designed to enable success in the classroom (e.g., posted rules, schedule of daily activities, steps for performing tasks, etc.).
- Give the student written lists of things to do, learning materials needed, etc.
- Provide consistency in sequential learning activities to enable the likelihood of student success (e.g., the student has math every day at one o’clock, recess at two o’clock, etc.).
- Separate sequences into units and have the student learn one unit at a time.
- Create a routine (schedule) for the student to follow in performing learning activities, tasks, etc. (e.g., listen to the person speaking to you, wait until instructions are finished, make sure you have all appropriate learning materials, etc.).
- Teach the student to use associative signals or mnemonic devices to remember sequences.
- Involve the student in learning to remember sequences by having the student physically perform sequential learning activities (e.g., operating equipment, following recipes, solving math problems, etc.).
- Get the student to be responsible for helping a peer remember sequences.
- Utilize concrete examples and experiences in sharing information with the student.
- Consider using an education app to help the student enhance their memory. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.
