Research reports

Memory strategies in young children

Maintenance rehearsal in children

Flavell, Beach & Chinsky 1966: Spontaneous rehearsal found among 10% of 5 year olds; 60% of 7 year olds, 85% of 10 year olds.

Keeney, Cannizo & Flavell 1967: found 6 & 7 year olds who rehearsed spontaneously (without instruction) were significantly better at recalling a list of items than that of non-rehearsers. Training of non-rehearsers resulted in improvement almost to the level of the spontaneous rehearsers; however on later trials (given the option to rehearse) 10 of 17 newly taught rehearsers abandoned the strategy.

Categorizing

Moely, Olson, Halwes & Flavell 1969: Children were shown pictures of animals, furniture, vehicles and clothes, and told they could arrange the pictures in any way that would help them remember. 5^th graders sorted them into these taxonomic categories. 3^rd graders were able to arrange them that way once the experimenter labeled each category and pointed out members. Kindergarten and 1^st graders needed a lot of help — to sort the items, label the categories, and count the number of pictures in each category.

Moely & Jeffrey 1974: found most 6 and 7 year olds could sort successfully when given the suggestion that the items could be divided into “groups of things that are alike in some way or kind of go together”. Some children needed help to label the categories. When given the instruction, during recall, to think of a category label and name all the members in the category, then to repeat this with each category, recall was improved.

Zinobar, Cermak, Cermak & Dickerson 1975: found 3^rd and 4^th graders spontaneously used taxonomic categories, but 2^nd graders didn’t.

Bjorklund, Ornstein & Haig 1977: found 3^rd and 5^th graders were much better at categorizing when given explicit instructions about what to look for.

Denney & Ziobrowski 1972: found that if 1^st graders grouped items at all (spontaneously), they do it according to associations, e.g. pipe-tobacco, baby-crib.

Black & Rollins 1982: taught 1^st graders to categorize pictures of common objects ( such as furniture, clothes, animals, food) using two different methods of instruction:

• explanatory
• questioning (using direct questioning to lead the child to consider ways to remember and to develop a verbal explanation of the strategy).

These methods were further differentiated according to how general or specific the instructions were. Thus:

• In the general explanation group, the experimenter explained why organization was helpful in recall while demonstrating with the picture cards (“If I put cards together that are similar, such as all the animals, it will be easier to remember”).
• In specific explanation, the instructions were directed towards specific items (“I will put the dog next to the cat”).
• In general question, the experimenter asked questions and encouraged the child to manipulate the cards. The question emphasized the purpose for an organizational strategy (“Why do we put the animals together?”). Correct answers were provided if the child couldn’t answer correctly.
• In specific question, the questions were directed to specific items.

In all cases, the training lasted 10 — 12.5 minutes. All types of training appeared to be effective in improving recall, and there was little difference between them. Explanation was slightly better than questioning, and general strategies were slightly better than the corresponding specific ones.

Kobasigawa 1974: found that young children not only fail to categorize, even when they have been explicitly instructed to categorize they don’t use categories effectively during retrieval. Thus, when asked to remember the items, if they remember a category label, they tend to be satisfied as soon as they have retrieved one item from the category instead of searching the category exhaustively.

Scribner & Cole 1972: when children were reminded at presentation and recall that there were four categories, and told to recall all items from a category before moving on, recall was better for all ages (7, 9 and 11 years).

Yussen, Kunen & Buss 1975: interestingly, preschool children seemed to do better when they were not given such instructions, but simply asked to remember as much as they could.

Davies & Brown 1978; Davies & Rushton 1979: found some evidence that spontaneous categorization is less likely with pictures (the usual experimental stimulus); that young children are far more likely to categorize when faced with real objects.

Wimmer & Tornquist 1980: questioned children to find out to what extent they understood the value of categorizing in aiding remembering. They found 50% of 7 year olds, 60% of 10 year olds, and nearly all 17 year olds did.

The value of category labels in helping young children learn

Kobasigawa & Middleton 1972; Moely 1977: found categorization (labeling categories of items during presentation) improves recall in children in the 5^th grade (10 year olds), but not younger.

Horowitz 1969: found increased recall but no increased organization by 5 and 8 year olds who had to label auditory or visual items during presentation (vs children who simply looked at or listened to the items).

Williams & Goulet 1975: found telling children category names before presenting the items (prelabeling) didn’t help recall in 4 year olds.

Nelson K 1969: found prelabeling didn’t help recall in 5 and 8 year olds.

Ward & Legant 1971: found labeling pictures appeared to help picture recognition in 4 year olds

Nelson & Kosslyn 1976: found labeling pictures appeared to help picture recognition in 5 year olds and adults. Such labeling probably modifies attention to particular elements.

Rohwer, Lynch, Levin & Suzuki 1967: found labeling pictures aided paired-associate learning in kindergarten children, 1^st, 3^rd & 6^th graders.

Rohwer, Kee & Guy 1975: found labeling pictures didn’t help paired-associate learning in 2^nd graders.

Means & Rohwer 1974 (unpublished study): labeling pictures didn’t aid paired-associate learning in nursery school children,1^st or 4^th graders.

Hagen & Kingsley 1968: Overt labeling of animal pictures resulted in no improvement in recall of serial position in nursery children (around 5 years old); did improve serial recall in 6-8 year olds who didn’t spontaneously label; didn’t improve serial recall in 10 year olds who spontaneously labeled.

Ghatala & Levin 1976: Overt labeling produced substantially better recall than covert labeling in elementary school children.

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Mnemonics

Use of visual imagery in children

Danner & Taylor 1973: trained 1^st, 3^rd and 6^th graders to use interactive imagery to recall sets of three concrete nouns. There were three different training methods:

(1) The children were trained to generate their own interactive images, by drawing three integrated pictures of the separate pictures of nouns. For the first practice set they were shown an example of an integrated picture. The experimenter asked them to describe the relationship between the three items, then cued recall of two items with a picture of the third. There were two more practice sets, in which the child received encouragement and correction.

(2) The children were shown three integrated pictures (each showing integration of three items). Each picture was presented for 20 seconds, during which the items were named and the child asked to remember them. Recall of two items was cued by showing a picture of the third.

(3) The children were simply presented with integrated pictures.

It was found that 6^th graders recalled more when required to generate own images (i.e., trained using method 1). For 1^st and 3^rd graders, methods 1 and 2 were equally good for training. Since pictures are usually more effective than visual imagery for these ages, these results indicate the benefits of training. It’s worth noting that only 15-20 seconds were given for the child to generate their own image, and greater benefits might well have been apparent if the child had been given more time.

Use of the story (sentence) mnemonic.

Levin & Rohwer 1968: gave 4^th and 5^th graders a sentence mnemonic to recall 14 nouns. For example, the grey cat/jumped over the log/and crossed the street/to find the bowl/of cold milk/under the chair/in the new house/by the blue lake/where the young boy/lost his left shoe/while eating the fish/on the wooden boat/during the storm/that came last year. Recall of the 14 nouns was better using the sentence mnemonic than simply learning the list of nouns.

Negin GA 1978: used sentence mnemonics to reduce spelling errors. Ten misspelled words were selected from 6^th graders’ written assignments. The children were given two hours’ instruction on the use of sentence mnemonics in remembering spelling. They were given examples such as, “She screamed EEE as she passed the cemetery”; “StationERy is for a lettER”; “My skin shows resisTANce to a TAN”. They were told they could use two sentences if it was too hard to put in one. They were instructed to compare their misspellings with the proper form, locate the discrepancy, create a sentence associating the word with the correct spelling and rehearse the sentence. Their learning was compared with a group of children who were told to compare misspellings with the correct form, write each word in a meaningful sentence, underline the difficult section and rehearse the word. After each practice session, the children formed pairs and dictated words to each other. After six weeks, there was no significant difference in performance between the two groups, but after ten weeks, the children using mnemonics performed significantly better.

Pressley 1982: reviewed the research and concluded that even nursery school children improved in their learning when instructed to generate verbal elaborations.

Rohwer 1966; Rohwer 1970: found that sentence mnemonics using verbs (e.g., the dog closes the gate) help remembering more than sentences using prepositions to join the nouns (e.g. the dog and the gate).

Use of the keyword mnemonic

McGivern 1981: Children with greater vocabulary knowledge benefited more from generating their own keywords than being provided with them, whereas children with smaller vocabularies experienced comparable benefits from generated and provided keywords.

Levin 1981: suggested that as it becomes more difficult to derive keywords, it is probable that provided keywords (rather than generated) would be more effective.

Levin, Shriberg, Miller, McCormack & Levin 1980: Studies of 2^nd and 6^th graders and adults have found providing pictures of interaction between the keyword and the word representing the meaning of foreign word leads to higher recall than having the person generate their own image. Keyword method successfully used with whole classrooms and small groups of elementary and junior high students. Has been employed by 8^th graders to attach a persons name to a number of pieces of biographical info.

Johnson 1974: found the keyword method produces better results than those obtained by: (a) learning words in context (b) finding root words, and (c) learning synonyms and antonyms

Pressley, Levin & Miller 1982: found the keyword method produces better results than those obtained by: (d) presenting words in meaningful sentences (e) having students discriminate correct from incorrect use of words in sentences and (f) having students generate their own meaningful sentences.

Levin, McCormick, Miller, Berry & Pressley 1982: successfully taught 4^th graders abstract verbs (such as persuade, hesitate, object, glisten, resolve) using the keyword method. There were two steps: the child was asked to learn a keyword (word clue) for each word – keyword(s) were phonetically similar to a salient part or all of the word (e.g., purse for persuade; he’s a date for hesitate). Each pair of items (keyword and word to be learned) were presented on a card. After they had all been presented once, the child was shown cards with just the word on and asked to recall the keyword. If the child hesitated or gave the wrong answer, the card was immediately turned over and the keyword shown. The procedure was repeated twice. Most children were able to answer correctly after two trials. In step 2, the child was asked to learn the meaning of the 12 words. A colored line-drawing showing the keyword interacting with the definition of the word was presented; each card also had the word and its definition printed below the drawing (people in the drawing had dialogue balloons coming from their mouths – one character would mention the keyword, the other the word to be learned. The sentence was constructed so that the meaning of the word couldn’t be construed directly from sentence. The child was given 15 seconds to study the picture while the experimenter read the written material on the picture. It was found that children using this method remembered significantly more than children who used an alternative, instructionally sound method (82.8% vs 55%).

Levin, Shriberg, Miller, McCormick & Levin 1980: An adaptation of the keyword method was used to teach 4^th and 5^th graders the US states and their capitals. Step 1: the student formed an association between the name of the state and the keyword (e.g. marry for Maryland). Step 2: the student formed an association between the name of the capital and a different keyword (e.g., apple for Annapolis). The two keywords were then shown linked by a visual image (a line-drawing in which the two keyword referents were related, e.g. “The capital of Maryland is Annapolis. Here is a picture of two apples getting married”). When learning capitals, students were asked to recall the capital from the keyword, rather than the other way around, as they would ultimately be tested for recall of the capital for each state. Because backward keyword learning is more difficult, students were given up to five trials. They learned 12 capital-state pairs on the 1^st day, and on 2^nd day they were given 13 more, and told to learn them any way they wished. It appeared the students did not try to transfer the keyword method; the one student who did, did so ineffectively. This is not a surprising result, since they had been given the keywords and pictures, and hadn’t been taught how to produce them themselves. Results of the 1^st day: those who learned using the keyword method recalled on average 78% correct vs 65.9% for those not trained in the keyword method. After two days, the keyword group remembered some 71.2%, while the nonmnemonic group's performance had fallen to 36.4%. Clearly the keyword method is of most benefit in retaining information.

Pressley, Levin & Miller 1981: suggested guidelines for using the keyword method with children: concrete stimulus support needed (especially for children 10 years and younger). Instructions to visualize may need to be supplemented by experimenter-provided illustrations etc.

Pressley & Levin 1978: taught 2^nd and 6^th graders the keyword method to learn Spanish words. They found that the 2^nd graders didn’t benefit when keywords and translations were presented verbally, but did when presented pictorially. The 6^th graders were fine with both.

Levin, Shriberg, & Berry 1983: taught 8^th graders abstract attributes of towns (e.g., considerable wealth, abundant natural resources). Results indicated that pictures in which attributes were separately represented didn’t help recall. Recall was much better when the attributes were combined in a picture that incorporated the keyword.

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References

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Bjorklund DF, Ornstein PA & Haig JR 1977. Developmental differences in organization and recall: Training in the use of organizational techniques. Developmental Psychology, 13, 175-83.

Black MM & Rollins HA 1982. The effects of instructional variables on young children’s organization and free recall. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 33, 1-19.

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Danner FW & Taylor AM. 1973. Integrated pictures and relational imagery training in children’s learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 16, 47-54.

Davies G & Rushton A 1979. Presentation mode and organizational strategies in young children’s free recall. In MP Friedman, JP Das, & N O’Connor (eds) Intelligence and learning. NY: Plenum Pr.

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Moely BE 1968. unpublished

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