Improving your child’s Memory skills Thursday 2nd February 2012 Lorna McSparron Catriona Sargent

Aims of today’s workshop..  To begin to understand the terms ‘working memory’, long term memory, and short term memory’  To begin to understand how we can assess our child’s memory skills.  To understand the impact of memory difficulties on your child’s learning.  To explore a range of ideas which can help your child to cope with his / her memory difficulties.

What do we understand by the term ‘Memory’?  Short Term memory: the storage of information for a matter of seconds without having to manipulate it.  Long term memory: permanent storage of knowledge in memory stores located in various parts of the brain  Working memory: the retention of information in short term storage while processing incoming information and retrieving information from long term storage.

Assessing memory skills  Number span: eg… repeating 3 /4 / 5 digits in sequence (short term memory) / 3+ digits to repeat backwards (working memory) (telephone numbers).  Observation techniques 1. Incomplete recall of a sentence / poem / tables etc.. 2. Failure to follow instructions 3. Losing their train of thought (eg.. Child raising hand to tell teacher information & then forgetting what he / she was going to say!) 4. Task abandonment  Accurate assessment can only be completed by an Educational Psychologist. SALT assessment can also provide us with some detailed information.

Memory difficulties can impact on…  Organisation  Attention span.  Writing  Spelling (auditory & visual / long term / short term)  Learning letter names and sounds.  Reading comprehension / learning sight vocabulary.  Learning number bonds / tables, and basic numeracy skills.  Daily living

How to improve your memory (child / adult)  Don’t skimp on exercise or sleep  Make time for friends and fun  Keep stress in check  Bulk up on brain-boosting foods  Give your brain a workout  Use mnemonics / visual images / sensory strategies

Helping your child with personal organisation.. ‘To be organised we must be able to carry round, in our heads, a list of what we have to do or what we need throughout the day / for the task’  Schoolbag should have sections to aid the organisation of books and materials.  Using file dividers, coloured folders for different subjects, and colour coded books / labels.  Daily visual timetable.  Diary / calendar.  Equipment checklist  Use post-its

Helping with poor attention skills…  Keep instructions short and clear, using concise language.  Ensure that the child has good eye contact with you, and use his / her name in the instruction.  Give instructions throughout the task.  Allow ‘thinking time’ for the child to actually process the instruction and / or get the child to repeat the instruction back to you.  Encourage the child to ask for help / more time to do / complete the task.  Try to help your child to become independent in some tasks gradually

Helping with writing issues….  Try to avoid the need for the child to copy out large amounts of work from a book / board (photocopy / scribe).  Allow for alternative methods of recording eg.. Diagrams, mind-maps, dictaphone, word processing, story planners.

Difficulties with reading comprehension…  The dyslexic child can often have to work so hard at decoding words that he / she loses the meaning of the text.  Punctuation in reading is often ignored.  The child does not ‘engage’ with the text (no reaction to it / no expression used). To help we should…  Use the cloze procedure / sentence completion type comprehension tasks.  Photocopy the text and use a highlighter pen to identify key points.  Discuss films / tv programs that you and your child watch together

Developing visual memory skills Children with visual memory difficulties often struggle to:  Draw scenes / images from memory  Learn basic letter symbols  Develop a sight vocabulary  Copy from the board Activities to develop this skill include:  Playing ‘Kim’s game’  Memory walk  Multi-sensory activities for letter symbols / key words.  Key word programme  Looking at photographs / pictures and talking.  Jigsaws  Pattern building / sequences (puzzle books)  Cars and number plates game

Helping with numeracy difficulties…  Use of Numicon shapes / cuisinere rods (consistent colour used for each number).  Times table raps.  Using ‘base ten’ materials.  Number lines, multiplication grids, memory cards.

Recommended websites from our Educational Psychologist…  emorygames.htm emorygames.htm      memory.htm