Self Help

Very young children have no trouble using their imagination and forming ridiculous pictures. They not only do it easily, they think it’s lots of fun. If you have children, acquaint them with some of the ideas that you can find throughout our memory articles; you can harness that lively imagination and help them sharpen their sense of concentration - without their realizing what you’re doing, of course.

For example, there is what is called a “link system” that helps strengthen memory in which you link objects to whatever it is that you want to remember easily. Make a game out of the Link system. For example, during an automobile trip, see who can remember a list of items faster, or who can remember the most items. It is fun and the children are learning a useful skill at the same time.

If you want to play the game of remembering items by number with a child who’s too young to learn the phonetic alphabet, there’s a way to teach him ten “Peg Words” almost instantly. They are easy to learn because they rhyme with the numbers, and most of them come from a song your children probably know. For example:

1. one—run
2. two—shoe
3. three—tree
4. four—pour
5. five—hive (picture bees)
6. six—sticks
7. seven—heaven
8. eight—gate
9. nine—sign
10. ten—hen

Some of the words from the song have been changed to words that are easier for a child to picture. Teach the youngster to picture the item running, for 1 (run); being poured out of something, for 4 (pour); in the sky, for 7 (heaven); and so on.

The number-word rhymes make it easy for a child to learn the words in minutes. Once he has been tested on them, and knows them, he can be taught to associate (don’t use that word; the children won’t know what you’re talking about) any item to any of these Pegs. If you mention banana for number 6, the child will think sticks and, perhaps, see a bunch of bananas tied like a bunch of sticks. Give him a suggestion or two the first few times.

Here’s another way to use the Link as a game. Place eight or so items on a tray and cover them with a cloth. First remove the cloth for a short time (a minute or so), then replace it and have everyone try to list all the items. Each player receives one point for each item listed correctly; the more a player lists, the better his score.

Or you can show the items for a moment, then remove a couple of them without letting the players see which ones have been removed. You expose the tray of items again for ten seconds or so. The first player who correctly lists the missing items wins.