1. If you practice using your working memory, you can enhance it. This is true for kids and adults.
2. At 4 or 5, you can work on mental rehearsal to improve memory.
3. At 8 or 9, you can teach children to use mental imagery to help with memory.
4. At 9 or 10, mnemonic strategies become helpful.
Interesting facts:
Neurons in the brain are interconnected. Most research is on primates and extrapolated to humans. All thoughts are based on patterns of activity on neurons, creating the physical structure of the brain. Toddlers create more synapses and connections than adults. At age 2, children can learn simple songs early.
Short term vs long term storage. We don't encode as much as people generally think we do. Our mind's eye only encodes what we focus on.
Processing things puts things into working memory. To remember for a long time, we need to move from working memory to long term memory.
Working memory expands until age 12.
The ability to remember digit sequences are predictors of success in school. Part of this is following directions and remembering them.
We are really bad at noticing changes in things, especially if we don't specifically focus on it.
One test for memory is the digit span task. ie How many digits can you remember? A higher memory span is a predictor for school success. Some kids with low digit spans are diagnosed with ADHD.
How can you expand working memory?
There are computer games, similar to "Simon", that help kids with their memory. A simpler way of doing this is using a "matching" game like this one. Another strategy is the progressive story game. (This is a game where each participant adds a phrase to what the last person said, until someone forgets a part of the story. "I went to China and...") Give a kid a sequence of instructions to get practice remembering.
How to improve long term memory?
Rehearsal - repeating information to yourself. Most children discover this at 7, but can be taught at 5 or 6. Kids tend to do it out loud. This is good for prolonging the memory of something. Can be used until you write it down or encode it long term.
The mind is good at remembering visual images. For adults converting something to a mental image is an effective strategy, like the mental image of a person's name. Consider the visualization strategy of connecting Mitten to Michigan because the state looks like a mitten.
Mnemonics to remember items. King Phillip Came Over for Good Soup. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Now. This is part of a broader strategy of helping us expand the 7 chunks of information in our working memory.
Using visual imagery can be helpful. The book by Joshua Foer's "Moonwalking with Einstein" is a good read he recommends. I enjoyed "Prisoner of Trebekistan" on competing in Jeopardy.
