The Forgetting Curve

As we have discussed previously in this dyslexia blog students with dyslexia often have problems regarding memory.

Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German pyschologist is famous for his research into memory which he carried out in the 1880’s. His experiments give an insight into learning and forgetting and his findings are still valid today. He tested his own memory using a large number of nonsense syllables which he created.

His findings were as follows :

It is harder to memorize material that does not have significance or relevance to the learner.

His data revealed that increasing the amount of material to be learned usually dramatically increases the amount of time it takes to learn it. This is the learning curve.

He established that relearning is easier than initial learning, and that it takes longer to forget material after each subsequent re-learning.

Ebbinghaus’s work also suggested that learning is more effective when it is spaced out over time rather than crammed into a single marathon study session.

Ebbinghaus also discovered that forgetting happens most rapidly right after learning occurs and slows down over time. This is the forgetting curve. It shows that about 80% of what students learn today will be forgotten within 24 hours ,if the material is not gone over.

So what can we learn from this ?

It is important that students regularly review the knowledge that they are learning; this is how things move from short-term to long term memory and become easier to recall at speed.

Effective revision should an ongoing process, not a cramming session just before the exams.

It is important for students to revise at particular points in time in order that they don’t forget the information they have learnt :

They should go over the information they are learning in the same day (in the evening for 10 minutes ) also 24 hours later, one week later and one month later ( or sooner ).

Remember that students with dyslexia will also need to revise even more frequently. The more over learning they do the easier it will become to recall information. It is a good idea if students can make up questions to test themselves on the information they are learning, as this is a good aid to learning.

It would be a useful if parents and teachers explain the importance and implications of the forgetting curve to children in order to encourage them to review material learnt more regularly.

Mnemonic Lists

In a previous dyslexia blog article I talked about how mnemonics can help dyslexic pupils in their studies. A mnemonic device is a memory aide that helps you to remember sets of information more easily.

I recently found some websites which list ready-made mnemonics for a number of different topics:

Here are their addresses :

www.eudesign.com/mnems/_mnframe.htm

http://www.mnemonic-device.eu/mnemonics/

You could also search for specific topics in Google :

eg "science mnemonics " "maths mnemonics" etc...

CHRISTMAS GAMES TO HELP LANGUAGE AND MEMORY

Here are some Christmas games to help develop language skills and improve your dyslexic child’s memory.

Christmas is a great time for having fun and playing games.In additon you can help your child to improve their language skills and memory ..

Try playing 'Father Christmas came down the chimney and brought me.....'

This game is a bit like 'My grandmother went shopping....'. You take it in turns to add a new present each time.
One person might say "Father Christmas came down the chimney and brought me a doll " and the next person must remember what Father Christmas has already brought and add something new eg "Father Christmas came down the chimney and brought me a doll and a car".
You can see you many things your child can remember !


How about playing a game of Guess What?

This will help children listen to information in sentences and use clues to help them understand.

Cut out some pictures of Christmas objects from old magazines (or you could use real objects) and arrange them on the table. . Tell the children that you are thinking about one of the things and give them some clues to help them work out which one you are talking about. Give them clues about what type of thing it is, what it is made of and what it can do. Can they guess which object you were thinking of? How many clues did it take? You can let children take a turn too to see if they can give the clues to you.

You could make up a Christmas story together ..

Choose your characters such as a snowman , Father Christmas etc and then take turns to add one sentence at a time to see where your story ends up.

Game ideas care of I CAN

http://www.ican.org.uk

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

ONLINE MEMORY GAMES

In the previous blog article about memory games I mentioned that often dyslexic children have issues concerning memory.Most children, of course, enjoy playing online games .Here are some your child can play to help to them improve their memory skills :

Brain Connection is an online source of information about the brain and learning for educators, parents, students and teachers .

If you look at the left hand column you can click on “games”. There are a number of good games for children including bumper cows. This is a game to test working memory.You have to remember and repeat a sequence of sounds and colours.

http://www.brainconnection.com/

Neuroscience For Kids - Has games to test memory eg “Simon says” - memory game.
Really good site for children.

If you type in "Neuroscience for Kids " in google you can find this site.


Memory lights
Memory lights is a sequential memory building game.The computer lights up a sequence of lamps and you need to repeat the sequence in the same order.

www.math-and-reading-help-for-kids.org/kids_games/memory_lights.html

or type in “educational games for kids – memory lights – in google.

The Kids Page.com – contains free kids memory games online eg
shapes memory game(click the cards to match pairs of colored shapes) plus various other concentration games.

www.thekidzpage.com/freekidsgames/memorygames.htm

Eidectic games and puzzles :
Eidetic memory or photographic memory, is the ability to retain a highly detailed mental image of something not in sight.

http://www.ababasoft.com/
After click on the link for eidectic memory games

Memory Gym - memory games plus strategies to improve memory skills.
Games incluse : flashing Numbers - random numbers are automatically generated and flashed / spoken numbers / flashing playing cards and shapes etc

www.memorise.org/memoryGym.htm

Memory – Test your memory
Gives random letters/numbers etc and tests how many you can remember.

www.easysurf.cc/menu.htm

Remember to get your child to do these games on a regular basis – maybe for a short time each day.

MEMORY GAMES

Dyslexics often have problems with working memory and this can make learning difficult. Working memory is the part of the memory we use when we are told a phone number and keep it in our heads before writing it down . It is our capacity to store and manipulate information for brief periods of time.Working memory can be auditory and visual.

What can be done?
You can try to improve poor working memory by using various games to develop memory skills Here are some examples of games you could try with your child.

Auditory memory

“I went to the shops and bought….”
This is a classic memory game where each person adds a new item to the list in alphabetical order.
For example, : “I went to the shops and I bought an apple”. 2nd person: “I went to the shops and I bought an apple and a bike”. First person: “I went to the shops and I bought an apple, a bike and a coat”. Etc etc…
Dyslexic students may have more trouble remembering which letter comes next rather than the object.

I went on my holidays - and in my suitcase I packed..........."
The child lists an object and the next person has to repeat the previous names and then add his or her own, and so on. You can either go through the alphabet - or objects at random - and you can add adjectives to each object as well.

The digit span game (remembering numbers forwards & backwards.)
Get your child to listen carefully as you say some numbers. Start with two digit numbers and build up slowly.
Eg 786 839/ 4578 9345 / 23451 59431
When you have finished, ask your child to say them.
Digits should be given at the rate of one per second.
Also you can ask your child to repeat some numbers backwards eg 56 98

You could also try this with nonsense words with the same amount of syllables eg za-me, pe-sa,

Instruction game
The purpose of this game is to increase your child's ability to remember instructions that are given to him/her.If you.play this game often it can help to improve your child's short term memory .
The game's object is to see how many commands the child can successfully complete. Start off with say 3 commands – “ bring me your maths book , second, put your t-shirt in the laundry basket, bring me a glass of water ”
If the child is able to do all commands give him/her lots of praise.
Next, give the child four commands.
Keep playing the game until the child forgets one of the commands.
When the child forgets one of the commands, finish playing the game for that day.Keep a record of the number of commands completed successfully. Next time the goal will be for the child to improve on their score.
Play the game for short periods in order to keep the game fun. You can add incentives to get the children to enjoy playing it. For example, you could say that if they managed to carry out a certain no of instructions, they could get some kind of treat .

Visual Memory
"Kim's Game" where you look at a tray of objects for a minute and then see what you can remember. Increase the number of items to make it harder.

Other ideas include showing a sequence of items and then mix them in with a number of others before asking the child to select the ones they saw and arrange them in the order they were originally shown in.

Another idea is to cut a colour picture out of a magazine,, and ask the child to look at it closely for one minute. Then remove it and ask them questions about the picture.

Make two sets of identical flash cards to make a concentration/memory game. They could be pictures or words etc . Variations : You could use letters of the alphabet eg capital and lower case letters. Fractions – visual representation and written form of fractions. etc

Have your child lay the cards on a table in rows, in a face down position.
Your child turns over a card, then they flip over a second card.
If the two cards are the same, they’ve found a match.They can set aside their pair and go again. However, if the two cards are not a match, your child turns them face down again.
Repeat this process until all of the cards have been matched.
This game can be played with more than one person.


Simple Simon says…. “Touch your toes” .. can be used with visual or auditory instructions.
The child or children must do what “Simon” tells them to do when asked with a phrase beginning with "Simon says". If Simon says "Simon says jump", the player or players must jump (players that do not jump are out).
However, if Simon says simply "jump", without first saying "Simon says", players do not jump; those that do jump are out.

For lots of good memory game ideas - go to Neuroscience for Kids . If you type in "Neuroscience for kids " in google you will find this site.