Mnemonic is a Greek word meaning aid to memory. In this sense, a device that helps us remember information is known as mnemonic and an entire system to improve or develop memory is called mnemonics. This system usually makes use of visual imagery to provide useful associations and connections for remembering the required material. Systematic strategies for strengthening long-term retention and retrieval of information are called mnemonic strategies. They refer to the systematic process used for the enhancement of our memory. Mnemonic strategies facilitate learning. The use of mnemonic strategies makes it easier to remember information learnt at the time of need. They work by creating connections where no connection is immediately obvious to the learner.

Although a number of recalling techniques exist which can be used to retrieve forgotten information has been encoded and fed to the main consideration behind how well the information is retrieved.

Eg: Acronyms. An acronym is an abbreviation in which each of the letters stsnds for the first letter in a list of words to be recalled.

Other popular mnemonic strategies include rhyming (“I before e, except after c.”)

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Mnemonic is a memory enhancing instructional strategy that involves teaching students

to link new information that is taught to information they already know. According to Lewin (1993) mnemonic instruction is useful for students across a wide age range. Though students in the early elementary grades are usually not expected to learn and recall as many facts as older students, they are involved in a number of activities that involve making associations that employ mnemonic principles.

Eg: Associations linking the letter “a” to the word “apple” or “f” to “flower” employ mnemonic principles. Teachers instruct students in the use of mnemonic strategies by using both visual and verbal cues.

There are certain methods for teaching mnemonics: The method of loci, the peg-word method, rhyming, the narrative-chaining, initial letter strategy, the keyword method, chunking, simple repetition.

a. a. The Method of LociThe Method of Loci

• The Latin word ‘loci’ means ‘locations’ or ‘places’. The method of loci is an encoding technique that creater visual associations between already memorized places and new items to be memorized. The loci method is based on the assumption that location can serve as an effective cue for remembering the material. It consists of the following three steps.

Step 1: Developing one’s own route by identifying a set of places that are located in some natural or familiar order (ie. 20 or 30 locations in one’s own house).

Step 2: Converting each item to be remembered into an image and storing it in a specific location (a stop on the decided route).

Step3.: During retrieval or reproduction, taking a mental walk by recalling what was placed or stored in each location or stop on the familiar route.

b. b. The peg-word methodThe peg-word method

In this method we have to memorize as cues a set of peg-words rather than a set of locations. This method uses the basic principle of associating an unknown thing with a known object. First make a list of 10 or 20 convenient pegs or keywords that you can easily recall in the right sequence. For example: ant, butterfly, cat, dog elephant, fox giraffe, hyena and so on. These are easily remembered since they are all living beings and their first letters follow the alphabetical order. If you want to remember eight things in a particular order create in your mind funny pictures by linking each one with the pegs we have fixed in your minds. Let us say that first three items to be remembered are clock, calculator and measuring tape. You visualize ants moving along a clock, a butterfly fluttering with a calculator on its back and a cat trying to unwind a measuring tape. The more amusing the pictures the more easily would you remember the sequence. If you make a list of 20 pegs and remember them thoroughly, almost all practical requirements can be met.

The peg method is an encoding technique that creates associations between number-word rhymes and items to be memorized. The rhyme act like peg on which you hang items to be memorized.

c. c. RhymingRhyming We remember verse better than prose. Most of us can recollect some of the poems we

learnt in the elementary school, since they are rhymed and could be sung as songs. Almost all the books on religion and science in ancient India were in the verse form, permitting easy memorization in an age in which there was no printing.

It is a good idea to convert important points into a rhyming verse. You know how nursery teachers teach the tiny-tots the sequence of the alphabet by making the 26 letters rhyme with “twinkle twinkle little star”.

d. The Narrative-chaining MethodThis method consists of making up a story around whatever things one wants to

remember. Here the plot or incidences of the story work as a clue for remembering the items.

e. e. Initial Letter StrategyInitial Letter Strategy

1. Acronyms:

In acronyms, we use each first letter from a group of words to form a word that may be an artificial one. UNESCO for United Nations Educational Scientific an Cultural Organization and VIBGYOR used to remember the colours of the spectrum are examples.

2. Acrostics:

In an acrostic, you make a sentence instead of an artificial word. Acrostics help to remember of items in a specific order. “My very educated mother just showed us nine planets in the order of their distances from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

f.f. The Keyword Method The Keyword Method

This method makes use of imagery for remembering the difficult, uncommon and unfamiliar words and items. For example, if one wants to learn ‘golova’ the Russian word for head, one looks for a keyword resembling and associated with the word golova. It may be Gulliver. Now a mental image can be built around this keyword making note of the other word ‘head’ of the desired pair for associate learning. For this purpose, the learner may visualize Gulliver with his head tied down by the Lilliputians and this portrait or mental image may help him to remember the Russian word ‘golova’ associated with its English equivalent ‘head’.

g. ChunkingThis method is useful for remembering numbers, although it can be applied for

other things as well. Normally short-term memory is limited to five or six digits or items at a time. Imagine that you have to remember a telephone number with 13 digits. Instead of trying to remember all of them in one go, split it to three chunks of five, five, and three digits and try them.

h. h. Simple RepetitionSimple Repetition

This is a simple yet successful method that is popular. Children often commit poems to memory by reading them over and over. Children learn multiple table by repetition. There should be some effort to over learn, since that is committed to short-term memory may not last for long.

Some people suggest a formula known by the acronym MURDER-Mood, Understand, Recall, Digest, Expand and Review.

Mood - create a positive mood for studying.

Understand- learn with conversation.

Recall - recall after learning each unit of the lessons.

Digest - make further attempts to embed the ideas more firmly in your mind by

going to further sources.

Expand - ask questions on the content and think of applications in new

environments.

Review - go over the contents and the learning strategies you had adopted.

Mnemonic instruction is an instructional strategy commonly

used with students who have disabilities as well as with their non-disabled peers. It is designed to improve memory of key information. Mnemonic instruction facilitates access to the general education curriculum by giving students the tools they need to better encode information so that it will be much easier to retrieve it from memory at later points. Mnemonics can be used in language arts (vocabulary, spelling and letter recognition), mathematics, science, social studies, foreign language and other academic subjects. Use of this instructional strategy does not require a wealth of additional materials or extensive planning and preparation time.

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