Helping Students Remember

Exercises and Strategies to Strengthen Memory

Milton J. Dehn

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780470919972
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781118117910
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

A hands-on memory-training program for children and adolescents featuring dozens of practical, evidence-based memory exercises

A practical workbook designed to assist students whose academic learning is suffering due to a memory deficit or ineffective utilization of their memory capabilities, Helping Students Remember provides numerous strategies and methods to strengthen memory, including chunking, organization, keyword, self-testing, pegword, loci, and mnemonics.

Drawing on the author's extensive training and experience, this useful resource presents effective techniques and lessons on:

• How memory works

• Memorization methods

• Goals for improving memory

• Repetition

• Using cards to build memory

• Grouping words by category

• Study skills that help memory

• Using arithmetic to build memory

• Using music to remember

• Improving recall during tests

• Creating and using review sheets

• Picturing verbal information

• Using context cues

• Plans for using memory strategies

With an accompanying CD containing all of the worksheets and word lists for reproduction, Helping Students Remember is the first workbook of its kind for general psychologists, school psychologists, and special education teachers, offering practical, easy-to-implement, and evidence-based methods for working with children with memory impairments.

Upper Level Workbook

LESSON 1

Introduction for Students

Do you often forget things you wish you could remember, such as where you put something, the directions you need to follow, or facts that you studied for a test? You know that it’s impossible to remember everything, no matter how hard you try. Forgetting facts and all sorts of information happens to everyone. No matter how easily we first learn new facts, we begin forgetting them immediately after we stop trying to learn and remember them. As minutes, hours, and days go by, we forget more and more. After a day or two, forgetting begins to slow down. The graphs “How Quickly People Learn” and “How Quickly People Forget” illustrate approximately how quickly most people learn and then forget a list of new words.

Fortunately, we can learn methods and strategies that will help us remember more and forget less. The purpose of this workbook is to help you learn methods and strategies for improving your memory. These strategies will help you learn and memorize information more efficiently and effectively when you study. That is, these strategies will allow you to make better use of the memory abilities you have. When you remember more, your learning will improve and you will do better in school. To learn these strategies well, you will need to practice them with your memory “trainer” and use them when you study and in other situations where you need to remember information.

Learning and remembering is a big part of what our brains do. Now that doctors and scientists can scan people’s brains, we know a lot more about how memory works. We know where memories are kept, and we know where and how the brain creates memories that can last a long time. One part of the brain—let’s call it the memory center—creates and stores memories; other parts of the brain store memories but don’t create them; and one part of the brain neither stores nor creates them. The figure titled “The Brain’s Memory Center and Storage Areas” shows the four main brain lobes. The memory center is located in the temporal lobe. The front part of the brain, known as the frontal lobe, is responsible for using strategies to help us remember, but it does not create or store memories. The parietal and occipital lobes store memories, in addition to their other jobs. Some memories aren’t put into storage very well, and they don’t last. Some memories remain in storage just fine, but we can’t remember them when we want to, such as when we can’t recall a fact that we actually know. How well our memory works depends a lot on our memory center. Some people are born with a weaker memory center, and some people experience things that damage their memory center. For example, a serious illness or a concussion can damage the memory center.

The Brain’s Memory Center and Storage Areas

Adapted from: Neuropsychological Perspectives on Learning Disabilities in an Era of RTI: Recommendations for Diagnosis and Intervention, by E. Fletcher-Janzen and C. R. Reynolds (Eds.), 2008, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Used with permission.

LESSON 2

Thoughts and Feelings About Memory

Name_________________________ Grade________ Date________

Directions

Discuss each response with your trainer before writing it.

1. How is your memory for what is taught in class? Do you remember most of what is taught or do you forget most of it?

2. How is your memory for material you study on your own? Do you remember most of it or forget most of it?

3. How is your memory for what you need to remember at home, such as where you put things? Is it strong or weak?

4. How is your memory for experiences and events, such as all the things you experienced yesterday? Is it strong or weak?

5. What are some things you might do differently to make your memories last longer?

6. For about how long can people remember something like a new phone number in their short-term memory?

7. There are different types of long-term memory. What do you think these types might be?

8. What do you think causes people to forget what they experience or what they study?

9. What are some things you don’t understand about memory and how it works?

10. Do you ever worry about not being able to do well on a test because you won’t be able to remember enough? If yes, how often?

11. How often do you feel bad or get frustrated because you can’t remember something? Is it never, sometimes, or very often?

12. If you could change one thing about your memory, what would you change?

13. Discuss with your trainer any other thoughts and feelings you have about your memory. Then summarize them here.

14. What questions do you have about memory and how it works?

LESSON 3

How Memory Works

People have three main kinds of memory: short-term memory, working memory, and long-term memory.

Short-Term Memory

Everything we see, hear, or experience goes into our short-term memory before some of it goes into our long-term memory. When we first experience something or try to memorize something, that information is briefly held in short-term memory. Information remains in short-term memory for just a few seconds—15 seconds at the most. The only way we can keep information in short-term memory any longer is to keep repeating it. There is also a limit on how much information we can hold in short-term memory. The usual limit for an adolescent is five to seven pieces of information, such as seven words. There are two types of short-term memory: auditory or verbal, for information we hear, and visual, for what we see.

Your trainer will now read you a list of eight words. Immediately repeat them back. In trying to remember those words, you have just put your short-term memory to work.

Working Memory

What you are thinking about right now is in your working memory. Working memory is the ability to think about something and remember the details at the same time. For example, when we try to solve a math ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• General Directions and Principles
• Optional Pre- and Post-Tests
• Lesson-by-Lesson Directions
• Lower Level Workbook
• Upper Level Workbook
• Appendixes
• References
• About the CD-ROM