College Planning: Learning How To Learn - Common Techniques for MemorizationBy Mimi Rothschild Many parents of home schooled children criticize the use of rote memorization and the parroting of information that seems to pervade traditional private and public schools. While schools may rely too heavily on these techniques and wrongly call it learning, the fact is that memorization is an important component of learning; all home schoolers can benefit from learning memorization techniques. A child, whether they are home schooled or not, may have to memorize countries, states, capitals, and presidents. Older students may have to memorize the bones and muscles of the body. In other words, for the home schooled child, memorization serves as the basis from which higher knowledge and thinking skills grow. The home schooled child, then, is in need of tricks and tips to make memorization fun, easy; they also need a way to recall the information readily once it has been memorized.
Home schooled children can take advantage of many of the psychological games to help them memorize facts. One method requires the home schooled child to figure out if he really understands a concept. Psychologists and teachers know that a child or an adult can only memorize a fact that he truly understands. A child will have a hard time remembering if the sun comes up in the east or in the west if she doesn't understand in what way the planets rotate around the sun. Once that idea is clearly understood, concepts like the direction of sunrise and sunset, moon phases, and time zones all begin to make more sense and are more readily memorized for the home schooled child.
Home schooled children can take advantage of their relative freedom to use other memorizing devices. Home schooled children can come up with their own mnemonic devices that will be more meaningful to them; they will be more likely to remember facts than if a teacher simply gave him a mnemonic device to utilize. Home schooled children can come up with their own examples which allow them to make associations that make sense to themselves- not just to their teachers or other students. A home schooled child also has the freedom to come up with his own associations. Perhaps a child can memorize a fact by associating it with a color or a shape. Research shows that associating facts with shapes or colors allows us to memorize that fact more effectively. All these devices make the home schooled student think about the concept or fact to be memorized more often and deeply. This entrenches the item into their memory, making it easier for the home schooled student to recall, synthesize and apply.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling mother, writer, children's rights advocate, and Founder and C.E.O. of home education company Learning by Grace, Inc. She and her husband of 28 years reside with their 8 children right outside Philadelphia, PA.
Rothschild launched Learning By Grace, Inc. because she believed that our nation's public school system has failed parents and students. Learning By Grace, Inc. offers online education through a multimedia-rich curriculum to PreK-12 children across the country and throughout the world.
An accomplished author, Rothschild has written books regarding education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Homeschooling News Café Blog consists of the most current and relevant education news.Electronic reproduction of this article is permitted if content is published unchanged, appropriate credit is given, and the article title links to corresponding article webpage.
