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The Secrets to Raising a Smarter Child
- By Inderbir Sandhu, Ph.D

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Helping Your Children Develop Memory Skills

By Andrew Loh



Teaching your children how to enhance memory skills is an art. Different children have different memory skills and abilities to remember things. A number of children will have very low memory powers and such children need extra help from both teachers and parents. However, making your children remember things out of sheer memory power could be very exciting, challenging and thrilling. Here are some well-known approaches that can help to improve your children's memory skills:

Make it Simple and Easy for your Children to Memorize

It is impossible for your children to hold too many things at a time. Hence, whatever you teach must be short and simple with no complexities. Children find it very difficult to memorize very long instructions.

Example: Difficult to understand and remember sentence is "If you complete reading those two pages and get ready for tomorrow's exam, I will allow you to watch your favorite TV cartoon show"

Very simple and direct instruction could is "When you complete reading those two pages, you can watch your cartoon"

Portion your Children's Work

Never ever, give your children lengthy portions to read. In other words, when you give a lengthy work, like solving 50 math questions at a time, your children will find it very difficult to memorize all of them at a time. Instead, segregate the work into small portions and ask your children to work on them in individual chunks. Let your children provide you the feedback for each of those sections before you give the next one.

Create Connections

The best way to teach how to improve memory skills in your children is to hook different ideas to one important concept and later teach by using the method of hooking and relating.

Example: Let us say you are teaching a lesson portion related to history. It is easier for your children to remember the whole lesson when you create a series of related events connected to the main theme. Big ideas can be very meaningful for your children. It is possible to streamline your children's memory skills by making them to learn and understand the main theme of the story.

Adapt Lessons and Instructions

All children have their methods of learning and remembering them. You may wish to learn and understand your children's learning style before teaching memory-improving skills. Some children can pick up instructions when their teachers read them out aloud, while others need to look at written sheets to comprehend the meaning. Some students need very slow paced instruction, while others can understand them even at a fast pace.

Use the Basic Techniques of Mnemonics

Tools that help your help your children improve memory skills can assist your children enhance their power of remembering. It is possible to enhance working memory skills and remember specific tasks by using these tools.

Mnemonics are the hidden clues of any types that assist your children remember lessons and instructions. This is possible when your children associate the available information they want to remember with a meaningful visual image, a simple sentence or a complex word.
Some of the most common types of these devices are:


Visuals: Here, you will be representing and connecting images and visuals with words and expressions. You may need to use only positive images while highlighting things. Unpleasant and negative images could be counterproductive. Let the image be colorful, vibrant and interesting to your children. Example: Use the image of a microphone to remember a name like Mike

Use Acronyms: Initials of sentences and words could help your children remember about various things and objects.

Memory Enhancement Food

It is also possible to enhance memory skills by providing good nutrition to your children. A diet based on fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and whole grains can help develop brains in children. Vitamins and minerals can also assist your children develop nervous system in children. B group vitamins can assist proper development of neurons and gray matter in the brain. Omega 3 fatty acids are those wonderful and natural substances that can act as effective anti-oxidants in preventing damage to the body system. Anti-oxidants can improve blood flow and introduce extra doses of oxygen.  Example of good food items are:

  • Spinach and other dark leafy greens,

  • broccoli,

  • asparagus,

  • strawberries,

  • melons,

  • black beans

  • citrus fruits,

  • soybeans

  • blueberries and other berries,

  • sweet potatoes,

  • red tomatoes,

  • spinach,

  • broccoli,

  • green tea,

  • nuts and seeds,

  • citrus fruits,

  • Liver

  • cold-water

  • fish such as salmon, herring, tuna, halibut, and mackerel

  • walnuts and walnut oil

  • flaxseed and flaxseed oil



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