It may seem overwhelming to your children to learn all the different information on a wide variety of topics. It can feel like their brain is going to implode with too much information, and they may feel a little stressed. This can especially become an issue when tests or quizzes come up, as children often cram as much info into their brains as possible. But unearthing an old go-to like mnemonic devices may be able to help your kids remember more information without feeling overloaded.
What Are Mnemonic Devices?
You may remember these little tidbits from when you were growing up and in school. It’s a fancy term for remembering larger chunks of information by using something smaller that will easily come to mind. Mnemonic stands for any learning technique that can aid in or retain certain information from memory. Studies have shown that mnemonic devices can help aid in storing information more effectively into someone’s long-term memory than other studying methods.
A great example of a musical mnemonic device is the Alphabet Song. Everybody easily remembers the order of letters and correct number of them when they have something to reference. Another example you may remember from your school days was the phrase “My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nachos”, which is a reference to all the planets in their order from the sun, starting with the closest: Mercury, Venus, Earther, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
How Your Kids Can Utilize Them
Now that you may recall mnemonic devices, you can help teach your child the concept! Explain to them the idea of how the devices work, as well as giving them a few examples so they can better understand the concept, and then help them with a few to make sure they get it nailed down. The only slightly hard part about mnemonic devices is that it’s up to the individual to create a shortcut in their brain to help them remember the information to begin with.
You can always do a quick search online to see if a mnemonic device already exists for the info your child is trying to learn. But oftentimes, it’s up to them to find a good pattern in the information and find a song or phrase that may work for them to remember the information. It might take a little practice to get into the swing of things, but once your children learn the powers of mnemonic devices, they may always use them to learn!
Katie Kyzivat