Teachers Use Mnemonics to Help Students Learn - Part 1

Mnemonics is the method of assisting the memory by using a system of acronyms, rules, rhymes, phrases, diagrams, and other devices to help recall names, dates, facts and figures. Many of us have learned some of these memory aids over the years, sometimes from our teachers. These helpful aids can become important teaching aids. In this article a few of the common mnemonic aids will be discussed.

Order of the Planets: If you use the first letter of each word in the sentence: "My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas", then hopefully you will be able to remember the planets in order as you go outward from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto". Of course we may need to change this memory device now, since we have recently declared "Pluto" not one of the planets.

Great Lakes: If you remember the word HOMES, you hopefully can use each letter to remember the names of the great lakes: Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, and Lake Superior.

Space in a Musical Staff: If you remember the word FACE you have the notes that would be represented in the spaces of the Treble Clef of music.

King Snake or Coral Snake: If you remember "Red on Black poison lack, Red on Yellow kills a fellow." which describes the color bands on these two snakes. The king snake has the black band right next to the red band and this snake is not poisonous. Sometimes this phrase goes like this instead: "Red on Black friend of Jack, Red on Yellow kills a fellow." You want students to know the difference between these two snakes. The king snake, by the way typically will try everything it can to NOT bite. It turns over and trys to play dead and if you continue it will try to slither away, and if you still continue it will release a fluid with a foul odor, and finally it WILL bite. (Of course it could already be upset and bite immediately, but this is not likely.) The poison of the coral snake is potentially deadly.

Columbus: If you remember "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue." you can remember the date of Columbus sailing across the Atlantic.

Turning Screws: If you remember "Lefty, loosey - Righty, tighty" you will remember how to tighten or loosen screws and jars.

Days In A Month: If you remember "30 days hath September, April, June and November, all the rest have 31, Excepting February alone (and that has 28 days clear, with 29 in each leap year).

The problem with such memory devices is that you must remember the device accurately and then it must become the springboard to cause you to remember the actual information you want to be able to use. The use of such memory devices however has a big advantage of making learning "fun". Since there are memory devices in many subject area, virtually every teacher will have some that can be used. There are now many internet sites that will provide many more examples. We might also consider making new similar memory devices to help students.