Dr Oluwagbenga and Miss Peace Oreofe Odunfa, Arish Schools Abeokuta
Students memorizing for one course can be difficult, it can be more frustrating when one memorises for multiple courses. Anyone can train and develop the skills of memorisation. Memorisation skills help information stick to the long term memory which will help you remember concepts later on in the future. It helps your mind focus and pay attention to learning.
The memorisation skills which will enable the use of memory to recall ideas, concepts and materials are:
#1. Organising the space and having a conducive environment makes it easier for memorisation. Making sure the reading space is clear of clutter and all the materials needed for study session helps the reader to stay focused and prevent distractions. A table full of clothes and other things along with reading books would not be conducive for memorization.
#2. Having a regular study session helps in exercising your mind and makes it easier to recall ideas, concept and materials. Revising and revisiting the materials (not more than 48hours after the delivery of the lecture) given for the class makes it easier to remember.
#3. Reciting the material and reading out loud in your own words until you don’t look at the material again helps memorisation of the material.
#4. Writing out on another sheet while reading also makes it easier in memorizing. Research has shown that writing helps information stick better to the brain as the medial nerve of the hand is connected to the consciousness centre of the brain.
#5. Having regular evaluation and testing yourself helps you memorise better. Set and practice questions, answer them and honestly award marks yourself in helping you improve your memorisation skill.
#6. Having a group discussion helps you teach each other. Asking yourselves and practicing questions, answering the questions and then correcting each others mistakes helps in memorisation.
#7. Learning by doing and acting out further helps in memorizing. By acting it out, you’re understanding the concepts better.
#8. Studying in different location helps in memorizing. If you noticed you’re no longer grasping information as desired at a particular place, sometimes changing of location does like magic.
#9. Having more than enough sources of information on the topic of interest and researching about particular concept helps in memorisation. Learners who browse on google, youtube etc in learning concepts find memorisation easy.
#10. Use of chaining technique, memory devices and assigning meaningful to concepts helps in memorisation like:
A. Use of mnemonics: This is a tool that helps us remember certain facts or large amounts of information. They can come in the form of a song, rhyme, acronym, image, phrase, or sentence.
B. Use of acronyms: They are used in academic writing in order to avoid the repetitive use of long, cumbersome titles. They are defined as words formed by the first letters of words in a name or title.
C. Use of acrostics: acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter or syllable, or word of each line or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word, message or the alphabet.
D. Use of flashcards: These are small note cards used for testing and improving memory through practiced information retrieval. They are typically two-sided, with the prompt on one side and the information about the prompt on the other. This may include names, vocabulary, concepts, or procedures.
E. Use of songs: songs and rhymes can be so much easier to remember than the spoken word. It helps remember things better because of a process called “chunking”. Chunking is when we take individual pieces of information and group them together into larger units. Research has shown that our short term memory can only hold about 7 units of information at a time. So if we cram more material into each unit by putting them into big chunks, making it easier to recall later and also enhance the ability to learn and retrieve in an organised manner.
F. Use of images, diagrams and charts:
It is said pictures speak louder than words. When were attach information to images, it is recorded in our visuo-spatial centres which will help in recalling things better and faster.
G. Using the method of loci: it is also known as the memory journey, memory palace, or mind palace technique. It’s a strategy of memory enhancement which uses visualizations of familiar spatial environments like imagining yourself placing items around a room such as on the couch, next to the lamp and on the piano bench, or along a structured pathway in a garden or a neighbourhood in order to enhance the recall of information.
All of these memorisation skills for student helps them to not only memorise the materials but also to have a deeper and meaningful understanding of the class. Memorisation skills makes children to work smarter and not necessarily work harder.
