Good memory power in children is much more than achieving good grades and getting better test marks. It can help your children retain information, process it properly, and use it to make wise life decisions.
Good working memory will aid them in understanding everyday situations efficiently. It can prove to be an advantage in education, sports, team activities, and general social interactions.
But how do we improve memory power in kids? Are there any tips and tricks to improve memory?
Absolutely!
There are tips to improve memory power that can polish your child’s innate ability to remember things and bring out their full potential. It is a matter of time, patience, and diligence.
Tips to Improve Memory Power in Kids
There are well-researched steps to improve memory in children without mentally exhausting them. This approach will not only help them remember things but also increase their overall concentration levels. Children will be able to perform tasks more efficiently and their confidence is sure to soar up.
The end goal is to assist children in effortlessly retaining things in their minds. It shouldn’t feel like a daunting task or a tedious activity. The memory power tips are simple activities that you can urge them to do daily so that they become a part of their routine. These tips and tricks to improve memory are so entertaining that the kids won’t be averse to the idea of embracing them.
But can these tips to increase memory power show the desired results?
According to a research paper published on the official website of the National Center for Biotechnology Information, episodic memory in children increases greatly during 4-8 years. This development sees an upward rise over time! So, if you start early, memory power tips can help your children improve their skills positively!
Strategies and Tips to Increase Memory Power
Before we start discussing helpful memory techniques, remember that sharp memory skills are not inherited. They are not something a child possesses when he/she comes into this world. The memory power needs to be nurtured, honed, and well-trained.
Each child has his or her own pace of adapting to these tricks. So, drop the comparisons and let yor little ones shine when they are fully prepared.
Here are a few tips and tricks to improve memory of your tiny tots.
1. All Senses Matter
It is important to help children perceive information from all their senses. If you are currently motivating them to sit down and read their books, level up and urge them to memorise pictures that they see in books, magazines, television or even on the advertisements they see on hoardings!
Teach them how to smell the flowers in the garden or that delicious lasagna that mommy dearest is planning to cook on Sunday. They should be able to distinguish between the touch of Doggy’s fur to the feel of Daddy’s Leather Jacket.
Sensory information plays a very important role in increasing a child’s memory capacity in their learning years. Kids start to associate information with sensory memory and this will help them recollect data quickly.
2. Active Learning
In the growing years, interactions play a very important role in shaping a child’s memory. One of the best memory power tips is to have a fruitful conversation with your child. Tell them about different topics and ask them what they think about it.
For instance, ‘Hey, Jenny. You see that those bananas are yellow? Don’t they look beautiful?’ Let Jenny visually see that bananas are yellow, they are of a certain shape and size, and then establish an opinion if she likes them or not. Discussing things can help children remember things better.
3. Real-Life Examples
Most of the steps to improve memory only work when the children understand what they are learning. When they don’t comprehend the information being served to them, they quickly move it to the trash bin.
One of the best tips to increase memory power is to let children relate information to real-life examples.
Let’s bring Jenny into the picture again. “Hey, Jenny…do you remember when you saw an animal ‘moo’?’ Wait a moment to let Jenny connect the sound to the animal.
Wait till she says, ‘Yes! The trip we took to the countryside! The cows were grazing and mooing!’ As we said earlier, patience and diligence matter.
4. Fun Field Trips
You will find this topping the list of tips and tricks to improve memory in children. And why is that? Field trips create interest in young ones to learn more about a subject. Let’s assume that you noticed your child is fascinated with the stars.
Taking them to the nearest planetarium will create a sense of curiosity in them. You must have heard about the saying ‘curiosity killed the cat’ but that’s not the case for us here.
If the homeroom teacher is currently teaching your child about animals, visit the nearest zoo to show them how the animals look and how they move! A museum or art gallery can teach them a lot about history, artifacts, archaeological remains, and the beauty of art.
Again, we are focussing on sensory memory here. You are ‘showing’ them subjects that they are ‘reading’ about in class while having a ‘fruitful conversation’ about the same. See, how we brought everything under one roof?
5. Songs and Rhymes
We are in a generation where children remember the lyrics to Taylor Swift songs more than they remember the answers to simple one-liner questions. Yes, when the dynamics of interest are changing, the steps to improve memory should change too.
Make a rhyme or compose a simple song that narrates the information that your child wants to remember. In general, our brains are more wired toward memorising music and patterns than information written in paragraphs.
You don’t have to be a musical maestro to do this! Please do not feel pressured. Just make a parody of that One Direction song or pick a tune that crosses your mind. Trust us, your kids won’t be judging you.
6. Mind Maps and Flash Cards
One of the most helpful memory techniques is to make mind maps and flashcards that will help children revisit what they have learned. Yes, it is human nature to forget things and it is important to revise and relearn.
The most preached memory power tips is to make colourful mind maps and flashcards that your children can use to revise concepts. We suggest that you let them do this by themselves while assisting them periodically. This way, they will also be able to revise and create flashcards/ mind maps in the most fun way possible.
DO NOT let them see this as a strenuous educational activity. Always give them the impression that learning is fun. This route of thinking should be established from a very young age.
7. Engage Them in Fun Online Games
When we are talking about tips and tricks to improve memory, how can we not consider the perks that technology and internet have to offer? Most of the kids these days know their way around smartphones, iPads, and tablets. Use this to your advantage!
There are several online platforms that offer games to improve memory power in children. For instance, there are matching games that require kids to match pairs based on a distinct category, puzzle games that ask children to arrange objects in a specific order, simple sudoku, colouring games, basic mathematical operations with fun cartoon elements, and brain training apps that aim to increase cognitive thinking ability.
There are apps that show you patterns, sequences, and lists and ask children to reproduce the same to particularly target their memory. Some would also give you customised memory power tips depending upon your child’s ability. You can gain a lot of input from these helpful memory techniques to further help your child improve their cognitive power to retain information.
8. Be The Student
Encourage your children to teach you about what they are learning. This is one of the best tips to increase memory power in children. It also serves as a measure to see how much of the information that they learned is retained in their mind.
Don’t make this a ‘Yes, so tell me what you’ve learned so far’. Don’t create an atmosphere of tension. Remember that we are trying to engage children in interesting activities that will prove to be the perfect steps to improve memory.
Go ahead and ask, “Are you learning about the Animal Kingdom? Tell me about it, will you?” Listen to how they explain or teach things to you.
Look at their study material and see if they have missed any points. If yes, tell me gently that they forgot to tell you about those things. Ask them to do it again so that you can understand better.
This will not only help as one of the most efficient tips to increase memory power but will also boost the confidence of your child. It is a great exercise to sharpen their communication skills while learning to withhold more information in their minds.
Another way to do this is when your friends, relatives, or neighbours visit the house, ask if your child would like to tell them about the Animal Kingdom. This will help them recollect information spontaneously.
Also, they can speak confidently in front of people who do not stay in the same house as them. This can be a little challenging and they can learn to come out of their comfort zone from an early age.
9. Keywords and Memory Triggers
It is a great idea to make a set of keywords or memory triggers that will help your child quickly remember a set of information. For instance, if they are learning about the planets in the universe, let ‘balls in space’ be a keyword that will help them remember that planets are big balls made of distinct elements that are rotating over a central axis, and revolving around the sun.
Without the keyword, they might find it difficult to remember a lot of information about the planets or the universe. Keywords serve as those mini-headings that summarise the entire information in the paragraph.
Memory triggers are words or incidents that happened while the child was learning that information. Did you bring them a bottle of strawberry milkshake while they were learning about the Presidents of America?
Then let that serve as the memory trigger to help them recollect the names of all these legendary men. When you teach them to associate information with keywords early in their educational journey, they will do it by themselves in the future!
10. Break Larger Information Into Smaller Portions
Is it possible to gobble an entire 6-inch pizza in one go? Do you enjoy eating your food that way? The same applies to learning. It is comparatively difficult to remember a large chunk of information and the wiser move would be to break it down into smaller portions.
Let your children read an organised form of information so that they can create a mental image of the same in their heads. This is one of the best tips and tricks to improve memory.
Sometimes, the visual image will imprint itself in their heads and they can easily recollect information. This is possible only when larger bundles of information are broken down into smaller chapters.
Conclusion
So far we have discussed a lot of tips to increase memory power in children. It is important to note that the cognitive progress of each child is going to be different. Be very patient during their learning journey and encourage their inquisitive nature.
It is crucial to strike a balance between learning and fun. Do not keep them with books all the time because the mind needs some variation to relax and rejuvenate. Incorporate these helpful memory techniques gradually in your child’s routine to see positive results over time.
