Excerpted from Chapter 8 of Academic Success Strategies for Adolescents with Learning Disabilities and ADHD, by Esther Minskoff, Ph.D., & David Allsopp, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2002 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Break memorizing into short time periods.

• Never try to memorize a lot of information at one time. This leads to overloading, and your mind won’t let you memorize any more information. Or, it leads to boredom and you can’t get motivated to keep working on memorizing.
  
  
• Try to arrange short, frequent blocks of time for memorization. Spend a certain amount of time working on methods to memorize some information and then review these methods at certain times throughout your studying time.
  
  
• For example, you may devote 10 minutes to memorizing your Spanish vocabulary at the beginning of a 2-hour block of studying and then 10 minutes in the middle and another 10 minutes at the end. This will give you 30 minutes of studying your Spanish vocabulary. It is less effective to spend 30 minutes at one time working on the vocabulary because of overloading and boredom. It’s easier to work on it in short time periods spaced out over time.
  
  
• Never cram! Don’t try to memorize information you haven’t worked on right before a test. If you do, this will make you anxious. However, before a test, you should review memorization techniques that you have been using while studying.

Recite information aloud as you write it.

• Read aloud the note cards you are studying from. Read the questions on one side and then the answers on the other side.
  
  
• After reading aloud, test yourself on the information by shutting your eyes and asking and answering the questions again.
  
  
• If you get the answer wrong, then write it several times as you say it over and over.

Establish mnemonics to help you remember information.

• Mnemonics are words and letters that help you remember information.
  
  
• To make up a mnemonic, make a list of the important facts you need to remember. Use the first letter of each fact to make up another word that will help you remember the ideas to be memorized. For example, the mnemonic HOMES was created to help students remember the names of the Great Lakes.
  
  
  • First, the Great Lakes were listed: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario.
    
    
  • Next, the first letter of each word was written separately: S, M, H, E, O.
    
    
  • Then, the letters were moved around to create a keyword that would remind you of the names of the five Great Lakes. The word HOMES was created using H (Huron), O (Ontario), M (Michigan), E (Erie), and S (Superior).
    
    
• Another type of mnemonic involves using the first letters of the words or ideas to be memorized to create a “catchy” sentence. The sentence does not have to make sense as long as it sticks in your mind and you can remember it when taking a test. Using the first letters of the five Great Lakes — (Michigan), H (Huron), S (Superior), O (Ontario), E (Erie) — the following sentence can be made: “Monkeys have seven orange ears.”
  
  
• It is important that you recall these mnemonic techniques when taking a test. Write down the keyword (HOMES) or catchy sentence (Monkeys have seven orange ears) in the margin of your test and then analyze the letters as an aid to recalling the facts.

Always try to visualize words or pictures in your mind to help you remember.

• As you study, try to visualize (picture in your mind) words and pictures that will help you remember. For example, if you are trying to remember the parts of an animal cell, then you may picture in your mind the diagram from your science book where the different parts were shown. If you used graphic organizers to help you learn, then picture the graphic organizer in your mind and recall each of the parts.
  
  
• After looking at the picture or graphic, shut your eyes and try to recall as much detail as possible. If you can’t recall all the details, then study the picture or graphic again and shut your eyes and repeat the process. Do this until you can recall all parts to be memorized.
  
  
• When answering a test question involving material you visualized, shut your eyes for a second, and try to recall all aspects of the picture or graphic in your mind.

Keywords help.

• If you have to memorize words or facts that are new or hard for you, then it may help to associate these with keywords. For example, if you can’t recall the meaning of the word ziggurat (i.e., a temple built in a series of terraces with each terrace smaller than the one below with a staircase and a shrine on top) for a world history test, then look at the word to find something that is related to the meaning. The small word zig appears in the word and the series of terraces zig-zag up.
• It is best to combine the keyword approach with visualizing. Once you identify a keyword, picture in your mind a relationship between the keyword and the original word (picture the zig-zag pattern of the ziggurat).

Sam, A Student with Study Skill Difficulties

Sam is a high school freshman who was diagnosed as having a learning disability when he was in second grade after he had difficulty learning to read. He has received resource special education services since that time and is now reading at grade level. Sam is a creative student who is a musician, artist, and writer. He has strengths in abstract thinking and is able to understand all of the content that he has to learn. He has been identified as gifted and talented; however, he has difficulty memorizing facts for his classes, especially biology and world history, which require him to use rote memory skills. He is in honors classes that require a great deal of memorization of facts as the basis for more advanced thinking.

Sam’s resource teacher, Ms. Reed, and Sam decide that the BREAK strategy would be helpful to Sam, especially for the weekly quizzes in his biology class. Ms. Reed models this strategy and Sam responds very positively because he sees how he can apply his creativity to recall facts. He especially likes the use of visualization and mnemonics because he likes to create visual images to correspond to the material that he has to memorize. If Sam can’t visualize material, then he likes to make up funny acronyms and acrostics. Ms. Reed and Sam have contests to see who can make up funnier acronyms and acrostics or more creative visual images. For example, when studying the food chain involving phytoplankton, zooplankton, mussels, and starfish, Sam associates phytoplankton with a visual image of a photo, zooplankton with a visual image of a zoo, mussels with a visual image of arm muscles, and starfish with a visual image of a star. He then makes up the silly acronym, “Pittsburgh’s zoo may sink,” as an aid to recalling the order of the four items on the food chain.

With this strategy, Sam is able to use his creative abilities as an aid to recalling rote information. Sam readily grasps the steps of the BREAK strategy and uses them independently to recall information for his weekly quizzes in biology as well as his tests in world history. His grades in biology and world history improve.

Sam also generalizes use of visualization and mnemonics to memorization of vocabulary for his French class. He likes to use these strategies so much that he decides to share a list of visual images and mnemonic aids that he has developed for the weekly French vocabulary assignments with his classmates. The other students find these aids helpful and begin to use them. The French teacher also likes the aids and asks Sam to keep a notebook of them so that she can share the aids with future students.