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Helping Kids Remember Stuff
Four ways to make information sticky
We cannot store every piece of information our brain encounters in our memory. How does it decide what needs to be remembered? Well, since our brain likes to avoid thought, if we spend a lot of time thinking about something, our brain decides to store it.
Our brain listens to us by storing what we spend our time thinking about for easy access later. Our brain wants to save us from the slow and laborious process of thinking. To do this, it uses our memory banks.
Whatever your kids are actually thinking about is what they will remember. Well, that explains a lot!
“Memory is the residue of thought.” Daniel T. Willingham, Why Don’t Students Like School?
How do we help kids think about the things we want them to remember?
Cognitive scientists have found there is one type of presentation of material that is used in a special way by the brain.
A story
Stories are what Willingham calls “psychologically privileged” which means they are treated differently in memory than any other type of material.
Willingham suggests that the organization of a good lesson should follow the same…
