MEMORY MATTERS

Practical tips to help students and guardians activate the memory process properly as they learn

- KHRISTIAN ROSS PIMENTEL

Imagine someone told you their phone number. You go somewhere to get a piece of paper and a pen. Before you even write it down, the numbers have disappeared from your mind. As humans, we forget, and children are prone to forgetting, too.

As parents and guardians help teach their children this upcoming academic year, they need to understand how memory works so that the lessons are not wasted.

How memory works

Memory is a process. The process of encoding information in your brain begins when a stimulus enters your sensory memory. It is encoded as short-term memory. When the stimulus has relevance or has been repeated, it may proceed to become part of your long-term memory. Otherwise, you forget this information. When a related stimulus enters your brain again, all it has to do is to retrieve a piece of old information from your long-term memory whenever you need it.