Memory Work for Visual LearnersPin

Memory Work for Visual LearnersPinThis is part four in my series on memory work. Find the other parts here:

Up to this point we have largely focused on the auditory elements of memory work. This is mainly because learning memory work is largely an auditory skill.

This is not to say, though, that there are not some helps to offer kids who have a visual learning preference. There are a few things you can do to add visuals to the memory work to help those kids along.

Two Strategies for Visual Learning

You can create slide presentations for your memory work. Use large block letters on a plain background and then include a picture to help visual learners connect an image to the memory work. This visual hook will help them to recall what the memory work is about.

You can create slides in programs like PowerPoint or Keynote (for Mac) or even using the Google Apps online presentation app (free!). These do not have to be fancy.

Listen or read more of this post

Type in the memory work, format it large and easy to read, and then search Google images for a related image. Here are a couple we have used for our memory work this year.

Memory Work for Visual LearnersPin

 

Memory Work for Visual LearnersPin

Once you have made the slides you can then display them on a tablet or computer as memory work is recited (we do this each morning during morning time). Students could also review these independently — by saving them as a PDF they could be viewed on most any electronic device — or you could print them in smaller sizes to make review cards for a student.

Another tool we used this year with visual learners was the picture story. During co-op we would often take a piece of memory work and create a series of drawings to represent the words we were trying to remember. These worked really well for history sentences and poetry selections.

The kids would help me choose the particular drawings we wanted to use to represent the various words in the memory work. I would create the drawings on the whiteboard line by line. After each line we would return to the start of the stanza and repeat the poem again and again using the pictures as cues.

Honestly, this was one of the easiest ways for ME, one of those visual learners, to remember the memory work. I have a far easier time remembering the passages and sentences we created pictures for than others. And the kids never complained about my funny drawings either.

Here is a picture story I have created for the first stanza of a famous poem. Can you guess which one it is? (I will put the answer at the bottom of the post.)

Memory Work for Visual LearnersPin

By creating a few visual cues, you can help kids with a visual learning preference to more easily retain memory work as they practice by also reciting or singing it. What tips do you have for helping visual learners? I would love to hear them in the comments.

P.S. The poem picture is the first stanza of “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.”