Strategies to memorize new material

Strategies to memorize new material

You have your choice of dozens of techniques of memorization. Keep in mind that no one strategy works by itself. Also feel free to devise your own strategies or add those that have worked for you in the past.

Rehearsal

Rehearsal is the key strategy in remembering information. If you don’t rehearse material, it will never make it into your memory. Repeating the information, summarizing it, associating it with other memories, and above all thinking about it when you first come across it will ensure that rehearsal will be effective in placing the material into your memory.

Mnemonics

Mnemonics are the tricks-of-the-trade that professional memory expert use, and you can use them to nail down the information you will need to recall for tests.

   Among the most common mnemonics are the following:

1.Acronyms

2.Acrostic

3.Rhymes and jingles

Acronyms

Acronyms are the words or phrases formed by the first letters of a series of terms. Acronyms can be a big help in remembering things.

For example: “RADAR” is an acronym for “radio detecting and ranging”

Acrostic

Acrostics are sentences n which the first letters spell out something that needs to be recalled. The benefits as well as the drawbacks of acrostic are similar to those of acronyms.

Rhymes and jingles

“ Thirty days hath September, April, June and November.” If you know the rest of the rhyme, you’re familiar with one of the most commonly used mnemonics jingles in the English language.

Use of Multiple senses

The more senses you can involve when you’re trying to learn new material, the better you’ll be able to remember.

You can make use of the fact that memories are stored in multiple ways by applying the following techniques:

When you learn something, use your          body.

Don’t sit passively at your desk. Instead, move around.

·     Stand up,

·     Sit down

·     touch the page

·     Trace figures with fingers.

·     Talk to yourself

·     Think out loud

Draw and diagram the material

When we draw and diagram material, one of the things we are doing is expanding the modalities in which information can be stored in our minds. Creating drawings, sketches, and even cartoons can help us remembering better.

Visualize

Visualization is a technique by which images are formed to ensure that material is recalled. Don’t stop at visualizing images just in your mind’s eye’

·     It helps make abstract ideas concrete

·     It engages multiple senses

·     It permits us to link different bits of information together

·     It provides us with a context for storing information.

Over learning

It consists of studying and rehearsing material past the point of initial mastery. Through over learning recall becomes automatic.

(Note)

The material provided in the post is taken from the book “UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGY”   (10^th edition)

All credit goes to the author; Robert S. Feldman 

 (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)