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BLOG No.56                                                                                                                                                                                                                We at our school tell children to use the mnemonic to remember  the difficult spellings  we ask children to prepare acronyms to remember the important points

A mnemonic is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory.

The advantages of mnemonics are two-fold. First, they help students encode information in long-term memory. And, second, and which is even more important, mnemonics help students retrieve information from long-term memory.

Many people use mnemonic techniques to help them improve their memory. These techniques can help them remember how to spell difficult words, recall a new colleague’s name and memorize information.

Mnemonics are memory devices that help learners recall larger pieces of information, especially in the form of lists like characteristics, steps, stages, parts, phases, etc. We knew back in 1967 from a study by Gerald R. Miller that mnemonics increased recall. He found that students who regularly used mnemonic devices increased test scores up to 77%!

Many types of mnemonics exist and which type works best is limited only by the imagination of each individual learner. The 9 basic types of mnemonics   are Music, Name, Expression /Word*  ,  *Model, Ode/Rhyme, Note Organization, Image, Connection, and Spelling

Music Mnemonics  How many lyrics to songs do you remember? How did you come to remember them? The same method you used to recall song lyrics also can work just as well in academics. Music can used to help students recall important details to main ideas and many learners have made songs out of information when a list of items must be learned. Advertising on radio and TV uses music to help potential customers remember their products when shopping. With sufficient repetition of commercials, advertisers have discovered that when shoppers see their product in the stores that often the shopper will start reciting a oft repeated phrases from the commercial or start singing the lyrics to the promotion melody. The results has been increased sales of the product.

You can make a song or jingle using any type of music you choose for any list of items. Music Mnemonics work best with long lists. For example, some children learn the ABC’s by singing the “ABC” song. Other children learn all the states in alphabetical order using the song or Doha playing around on whttsapp 

1.         Name Mnemonics

In a Name Mnemonic, the 1st letter of each word in a list of items is used to make a name of a person or thing. Sometimes, the items can be rearranged to form a more recollectable name mnemonic. Examples:

ROY G. BIV = colors of the spectrum (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.)

Pvt. Tim Hall = Essential amino acids  (Phenylanine, Valine, Threonine, Tryptophan, Isolucine, Histidine, Arginine, Leucine, Lysine.

2.         Expression or Word Mnemonic

This is by far the most popularly used mnemonic. To make an Expression or Word mnemonic, the first letter of each item in a list is arranged to form a phrase or word. Examples:

For physical laws dealing with gasses, try these:

Charles’ Law: For a constant volume, pressure is directly proportional to temperature.

The simple way to remember Chuck is if the tank’s too hot, you’re blown into muck.

Henry’s Law: The solubility of a gas increases with pressure.

To remember good old Hank, remember the bubbles in the shaken Coke you drank.

Boyles’ Law: At constant temperature, pressure is inversely proportional to volume.

Boyle’s law is best of all because it presses gasses awfully small.

In English, the 7 coordinating conjunctions are For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So = FANBOYS.

The order of operations for math*is Parentheses, Exponents, Multiply, Divide, Add, and Subtract = *Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.

The categories in the classification of life are Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, Variety = Kings Play Cards On Fairly Good Soft Velvet.

For those who have to remember the order of color coding on electronic resistors: Black, Blue, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Brown, Violet, Gray, White, Silver, Gold.

Bad Boys Rile Our Young Girls,But Violet Gives Welts (to) Silly Guys

or

Bad Beer Rots Our Young Guts But Vodka Goes Well (in) Silver Goblets.

Almost every anatomy class has to remember the eight small bones in the wrist: Navicular, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Multongular (Greater), Multongular (Lesser), Capitate, Hamate.

Never Lick Tilly’s Popsicle, Mother Might Come Home.

Create an Expression Mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets from the sun outward: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto*.

3.         II part of Mnemonic will follow…