MNEMONIC TECHNIQUES

As I have mentioned in other dyslexia blog articles dyslexic children often have problems with memory. As your child progresses through school they will be required to know more and more facts… Mnemonics ( memory aides) are useful devices that can be used to help children remember information that they need to know…

ACRONYMS

Take the first letter of each item you are trying to remember, then re-arrange the letters so that the acronym makes a new word. This is particularly useful when remembering words in a specified order. Remember that mnemonics are useful for rote memory, but do not aid comprehension. They also can be difficult to form in some cases…

The order of operations : BEDMAS – The sequence in which you tackle any maths problem with multiple calculations.

Brackets
Exponents
Division
Multiplication
Addition
Subtraction

ACROSTICS

Use the first letter of each word you are trying to remember. Instead of making a new word, though, you use the letters to make a sentence. Here are some examples:

My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets (Planets)

Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto

Eat An Aspirin After A Nighttime Snack ( Continents )

Europe
Antarctica
Asia
Africa
Australia
North America
South America

See David Wilson’s site – special Educational Needs.com for more examples…

http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/

After go to : Subject to recall : memory activities across the curriculum

MUSIC

Songs and rhymes can all aid memory. You could teach your child for example ; the months of the year/ alphabet etc by using a tune you both know well and adapting the words..

CHUNKING

This is a good technique to use to help remember numbers.
The brain prefers information to be broken down into small chunks. The mind can hold about six (plus or minus three) pieces of information consciously at any one time – three to nine pieces.
In remembering the number string 3235877865 , instead of remembering each number individually you break the number into chunks.

eg 323 587 78 65


Dyslexic children will often struggle with spelling words correctly. Spelling mnemonics can be used to help teach children difficult spellings such as:

Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants. (BECAUSE)
A real friend is there till the end ( FRIEND)

There is a really good powerpoint presentation from ICTeachers site about mnemonics which gives lots of examples of how to learn difficult spellings.
Go to ICTeachers site – after resources , literacy , spelling..

www.icteachers.co.uk/resources/literacy/mnemonics.ppt