Memory, Reading Retention Improvement for an 11 yr old

[renie408]

I homeschool my 11 year old daughter. She chews through math like a machine. She is supposed to be in the fifth grade, but we are doing sixth and seventh grade math, algebra and geometry and she loves it and just eats it up. She does very well in spelling and grammar.

She scores well on age appropriate IQ tests and has a large and varied vocabulary. So, here's my problem: Her reading comprehension seems normal to even high immediately after she reads a selection. Usually she can handle reading comprehension printables and answer appropriate questions immediately afterward up to a 10th grade level. But ask her the next day what she read and half the time she stares at me blankly. She just can't remember. We have been studying the Constitution this past week. We went over the Bill of Rights yesterday and today my husband asked her what it was and she gave him a really vague, sort of BS answer along the lines of "It's a Bill that talks about Rights."

Anyway, I have Googled several combinations of 'memory' and 'reading comprehension' and nothing is coming up. I would like to find some kind of software that helps with reading retention and with memory that would be suitable for ann 11 year old. If anybody knows of anything, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

[ticktockclok]

I don't know any software, but anyone can use Harry Lorayne's book, appropriately titled The Memory Book. She could use photoreading easily as well, but I don't know how interested she would be in it.

[Michael Tipper]

Hi,

I have just joined the forum and came across your post about your 11 year old daughter and the challenge you face about memory and reading comprehension. I notice that you made the post a few weeks ago now and so I hope I am not too late to offer you some advice.

I teach both memory improvement and speed reading to adults and occasionally to children and one of the biggest complaints I hear is "I can't remember what I have read". Understandably, people will naturally assume that because they can't recall what they have read then it must be because of a fault with their memory.

This is because they have made the common mistake of equating comprehension with memory. Here is the point (and excuse me for writing in capitals but it is a really important point :-))

COMPREHENSION DOES NOT EQUAL MEMORY

Here is what most people expect from the reading process:

Look at words - recognise words - comprehend/understand words - remember words - recall the words - communicate the words to themselves or others

Of course when they can't get tell someone what they have read they assume that the remember words and the stages that follow are at fault and so there must be a problem with the memory. (just like your daughter could not recall what she had read the day before)

So our expectations of our reading ability seem to go beyond what we are actually able to do in most instances - well that is because when we "read" based on the way most of us have been taught, all we are doing is getting to the "comprehend/understand" stage. We can't remember what we have read a few days later because we have not MEMORISED it (again please excuse the capitals, I only use them for emphasis of the point). In order to fully remember what we have read we actually have to perform a memorisation action.

Of course there will be some things that stick in our mind but if you are reading something and you want to remember it, you have to take an extra step.

When it comes to your daughter and her answer "it is a bill about rights" well that is exactly the sort of answer I would expect given the circumstances you have described. She has given a completely normal response for an 11 year old who has been through the Bill of Rights the day before and only read it, not memorised the main points.

There could be other factors involved here too such as just how interesting is the bill of rights to an 11 year old (I stress interesting and not important because it can be one without the other), and learning preferences, time of day, state etc but I think you will find that what you experienced here is completely normal and you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

Assuming you are not legally trained, try this out for yourself - get a legal document, maybe a contract, read it over a couple of times and then explain the complete detail to your husband in a couple of days - you will probably get the same result (and we might have an 11 year old making posts on the site wanting help for her mother's memory problem :-))

If you still want help with memory improvement, there are a ton of resources online if you just search "memory improvement". Good authors are people like Tony Buzan (who I have worked with and can vouch for his stuff personally), Dominic O'brien (who I competed against and know personally), Harry Lorayne, Kevin Trudeau (who both have their products and books sitting on my shelf and are highly recommended). I am still new to this forum and so will refrain from mentioning my own for now (can I get away with saying that my next memory book out in the US and UK in May - hope so :-)).

When it comes to your daughter I would highly recommend Mind Mapping which in my opinion is the most powerfulest thinking tool ever devised. I won't go into detail in this post but you had you created a Mind Map alongside reading the Bill of RIghts, you would have found your daughter's recall much higher (Again, check out Tony Buzan who invented this powerful tool).

I hope that helps and good luck with the homeschooling.

Michael