Memorization Is Hard for My Great student...any Tips?

Set it to music - the sillier, the better. (I know I'm not the only person who remembers the preamble to the Constitution by singing the School House Rock song, right?) The VBS I went to as a kid taught us the 10 Commandments via song - I still hum it from time to time - it's a nice tune. My kindergartner's teacher is helping them remembering the months of the year, by setting it to...the Macarena. Yep. And phonics sounds are set to..."Who Let the Dogs Out?" I have to admit, it's working.

Pick a tune, any tune, and run with it.

Find out what learning style suits her best. If she is a visual learning, then flashcard or note cards. Auditory, have her sing songs. Kinetic? Have her march around to a beat while repeating the facts.

Use "Mnemonics."
It is a method of remembering things.
I did a study on it per college.
Look it up online.

sorry have to be quick here gotta run.

Math facts, even for 4th graders, are not automatic.
How old is your child????

www.khanacademy.org is GREAT for learning math. For all ages even my 5 & 8 year old use it.
It is free.

If you have any kind of recording device, let her record herself reciting the Psalm (I don't think this will work with something like math facts). Let her listen to it repeatedly. Have her read along with the recording. Then, as she becomes more familiar with the Psalm, begin either pausing the recording or turning down the volume and having her fill in words or phrases. Do this for longer periods of time until she is able to say the whole thing. If she does well with visual prompts, you can do the same thing with a white board, chalkboard, or poster, where you write out the text and gradually erase or cover up words until she can say the whole thing.

Memorization does come easier for some people than others, but it's a skill that anyone can develop if they work at it. It definitely won't help with this situation, but you can improve her memorization skills by having her learn poems that are enjoyable to her. Poetry, especially rhyming poetry, is easier for most people to memorize but also trains the brain in the necessary skills for remembering other things. Good luck!

Sing it

Mnemonics--My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizza Pies. OK there is no Pluto anymore, but Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and the lowly Pluto.
Or Roy G. Biv--red, orange, yellow, etc

Say it as Grace, we say the Lord's Prayer on Sundays and Psalm 23 on Saturday. My kids could say them both at 3. Repetition

Flash Cards-every night

Have her read the verse, then quiz her
Whose Father? My father
In where? Heaven
What be his name? Hallowed
Hallowed be his what? Name

Give her the verse that you typed out with missing words, have her fill in the blanks.

Go around the table, she says 3, you say 6, Daddy says 9, sis says 12, she says 15, etc

Teach her multiplication tricks for 9's, 2's, 5's, We have tricks for all the numbers except 7's and 13's. MIne is in 5th, he makes up his own tricks.

Repitition. When we're praying at night and my son is learning a new prayer, we say that prayer every night and after a while, he learns it and says it on his own.

You could make a song out of the math facts. Not sure that would work for the Psalm...

Turn it into a song...that is what we do with bible verses and what-not for our children to remember. It does work! :)

I went to christian schools and had to memorize a LOT of verses! One of my girlfriends would make them up according to songs, like disney songs and thats how we would remember them. Also google "easy ways to memorize math facts" or even the psalm and see what comes up. We did this when my daughter had to learn the states and capitols and they had all kinds of games to play that made it easier. Good luck!!!

I was going to say sing it to. (twinkle twinkle, row row row your boat)

Or dance to it. You can do the Macarena to just about any song.

Amy B hit on something. My daughter is also doing Math Facts. She has trouble memorizing and generally remembers somethings (including) events better than others. She can memorize songs and melodies very quickly and I realized she remember things better and in more detail if she gets to talk about it. I started having her go over the practice math fact tests and say the equation while tracing the answer as if she was doing it. That seemed to help a LOT. Maybe do that or I think Amy's idea could work with math facts if she listens to it while going over the test again following along.

first and foremost its easy to memorize something you understand and not something you just read..

explain what does that Psalm means, relate it to a story and let her read the quote for 5 times then memorize each sentence...

Repeating it over and over and over is the best way to learn the Psalm. Also you might start with learning one verse, repeat it over and over and then the next verse, etc. Repeating it is the key. I forgot how many times they say you have to do that to really remember it long term. For the math use flash cards and again go over and over them. Drill her, mix them up and do it as a game. Now is the time for her to do this memory as I only remember what I learned about her age now. :-(

My son gets a bible verse every week and I put it on the whie board or on an index card and have him read it every single time he enters the kitchen, which is often!

Flash cards -- they are not fun, but they work.
Set the psalm to music... you can memorize any jingle...
LBC

Writing things down really does help a person to memorize it. In our new, fast paced technological world I'm afraid the younger generation is not going to have very good memories. There doesnt seem to be much call for memorizing things anymore since you can look them up so quickly online. It is going to be very interesting to see how this pans out 20 years from now.