Helping students remember what they have learned.

How do we help students remember what we have taught them? Research has pointed to several techniques that help students remember information. Spacing out the study of a topic , self-testing and information retrieval exercises are the most effective tools, particular when used in short bursts.

Why do children forget what they have learnt?

Help students remember what they have learned and improve their memory ?

1: Topics that are not learnt thoroughly, do not get stored in our long-term memory. As a result, we forget what we have learned.

2: Sometimes, learning a new topic interferes with existing knowledge. Children often merge, or cannot separate the two, and this leads to misconceptions and misunderstandings. For example, students might learn the rule for adding fractions with different denominators. Children then try to use the same rule for multiplication. That won’t work, and will cause confusion. The two methods have different rules that need to be remembered and used separately.

3: Children and adults often forget topics learnt. It is important to use what we learn to keep the knowledge or skill in our long-term memory. It happens to all of us. Even if a student understands a topic well, but doesn’t use the knowledge for some time, they are less likely to retrieve the information quickly when needed, and may forget it altogether.

4: Importantly, the student must want to remember the topic; they must not feel that they cannot remember it.

How we can do this:

 Practice testing—Self-testing, or taking mock exams, covering material that has already been covered, assists memory retention.

Distributed practice—Implementing a practice schedule on specific topics that spread study activities over a period time.

Elaborative interrogation — Asking students to explain why a fact or concept is true.

Games – help to make children feel relaxed and engaged and encourages them to learn. They do not feel under pressure as game make the activity enjoyable and fun.

Self-explanation—Explaining how new information relates to known information, or explaining the steps taken during problem-solving.

Student as the teacher – once a student is confident in a particular topic, asking them to explain even one small step improves their confidence.

Summarization—Writing summaries of presented information.

Highlighting/underlining—Marking potentially important portions of materials while reading.

Keyword mnemonic—Using keywords and mental imagery to associate verbal materials.

Imagery for text—Attempting to form mental images of text materials while reading or listening.

Rereading—Restudying text material again after an initial reading is a great way in.

We help students by using various techniques to help students remember what they have learned. HNL Tutors repeats topics, and give end of topic test. This helps information become familiar and leads to long term memory retention. We also play games, use quizzes and puzzles to help children. All of which makes for an enjoyable and happy lessons.