Repetition aids learning. Students can use repetition during their private study time. For the best results, they should find a quiet place free of distractions. Beginning with the first item on any list of words or terms to memorize, they should say it over and over again out loud, first while reading it and finally without looking at it. Once comfortable with the first item, they should add the second, and then the third, and so on. Each time, they should start at the beginning and recite to the end. For best results, they should recite the information several times each day to keep it fresh in their minds.
Rhymes can be much easier to memorize than a list a facts. Rhymes are an excellent memorization tool and can help students memorize anything from basic counting to scientific facts. For example, "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" is a common rhyme that teaches young children to count, while another popular rhyme, "Thirty Days Hath September," is used to help children remember how many days each month contains. Have children come up with their own rhymes to remember facts and lessons.
Similarly, songs provide a fun way to remember facts and aid memorization. Many 5-year-olds are introduced to the alphabet through "The Alphabet Song" and to numbers through "One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians." For a long time, songs were limited to learning basics for the young, but recently songs for a multitude of subjects have been introduced. A quick online search will reveal fun songs for learning facts in history, biology, math, and much more. A fun spelling song you're liking to come across is "Muffins Spelled Backwards." Have students create their own songs to memorize information.
When learning lists, it can be beneficial to make silly sayings out of the first letter of each word. This helps ensure that you know the items on the list and that you will remember them in the correct order. When learning the line notes on the treble clef in music, many students use the saying, "Every Good Boy Does Fine" to remember the notes are E,G,B,D and F. The order of the planets beginning with the one closest to the sun can be remembered by the silly saying, "Mark's Very Extravagant Mother Just Sent Us Nine Parakeets." Another popular saying is "King Phillip came over from great Spain," and it is a reminder for scientific classification: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Sayings are a great way to remember lists of any length, and the sillier the saying is, the more likely elementary school students are to remember it.
An acronym is a word or group of words made out of the first letter of each of the words on the list you are trying to memorize. Using acronyms is similar to using sayings, only instead of learning an entire sentence, you only need to learn a word or two. Popular examples of memorization acronyms include the following: (1) Roy G. Biv helps students remember the colors of the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. (2) The great lakes and their order can be remembered by using the word "HOMES"--Hugo, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. (3) PEMDAS is the acronym used to help students remember the order of operations in mathematics--parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition and subtraction.
When a student finds it difficult to memorize facts that he knows little about, he may find it helpful to associate the facts with something he is familiar with. He can create little clues to help him remember things that would otherwise be difficult to learn. A student can remember that Elijah comes before Elisha in the Bible because they are in alphabetical order. He can remember his room number because it is also the month and day of his birthday. Any association will work as long as it's something the student will easily remember.