Strategies to help dc's retain information.....

[flowertop]

Both of my DS' find school work very challenging. The main difficulty seems to be that they cannot retain information very easily and soon forget what has been taught. I would be interested to know of any strategies that have been successfully used to help your child with their learning/revision if they do struggle.

It sounds bizarre, but setting information to a tune really works. Pick something out of the charts which they know well, and ask them to set information to it as lyrics.

Even if it doesn't work, you get to laugh at them singing

You need to work to their strengths and find out what type of learners they are.

Learning to music is a well proven method but my DS2 and myself have auditory processing problems so we dont always hear things right. I could listen to a song over and over but would not be able to sing along accurately.

I am more of a visual learner. I like to write things down using lots of colour for different pieces of information or visualise pictures for pieces of information. Doing spellings with DS2 we try to make up silly sentences. Learning to spell eight we came up with; Elephants In Gardens Hate Trampolines

DS1 is a kinetic learner. He learns by following a process. If you asked him to read information on how to wire a plug, he would not hold it in memory, but if he was guided through the process he would be unlikely to forget.

I agree you need to work out what type of learner they are. What kind of information do they seem to be retaining (just from the world around them not from school)?

How do they think? Are they very logical and linear or more conceptual? If you asked them to do a plan would it be a sub-divided list, a spider diagram or a spiral with basic information which gradually layers up to become more complex? This will help them find revision methods which work as they get older.

How old are they?

Depends how old they are.

We just had an interesting thread on primary about whether or not memory can be improved.

There are a lot of people selling online memory training problems which claim to improve memory. However there are other studies done which haven't found it possible to improve memory....

Apart from that, yeah you can do visual / auditory / kinaesthetic stuff to help them retain info. Depends how pervasive the problem is. Are you just trying to get one or two facts to stick? Or every single thing?

Repetition. We have quizzes sometimes as we walk into school. Just light-hearted ones aimed at fixing info in their minds. The serious questions are intersperssed with nonsense ones that make the dcs laugh.

Thanks for the help so far. They are year 5 and year 7. I have recently realised that I have the same problem and find it hard to retain information. With the DS' we can sit down and go over and over a piece of revision for a test and no sooner have they left the table then they forget. It was the same with tables for years we chant etc in different situations but they forget so easily. I am concerned as Year 7 DS has to sit common entrance next year and not sure he will retain the information. Teachers at his school do get very impatient with him and he has started to become very upset about being the 'thicky' (his words!) in the class and his self esteem is dipping. I think the problem is we have not found a particular strength e.g. he is ok at sport and gets selected for the teams but because he's not the best player he sees this as a downer on him. I just need to help them as best I can to retain some information some how.

Sitting at the table may not be the best strategy for them - do you learn better when moving/walking around?

Is it possible to focus on skills and methods needed for the CE rather than learning lots and lots of facts? Although the studied text component may be very challenging...

Ok, well if it's a widespread problem I think you need to try Jungle Memory or Challenging our Minds.

No idea if they will work or not. But nor can I see anything else working if they don't......