MEMORY BOOSTING STRATEGIES

There are six good ways to help improve your memory, especially if you have a big test coming up. Some people are better at one of these strategies than other people. Some people are better at one strategy than another one. Everyone is different! To find out which memory booster strategy works best for you, try them all out first. Then you'll see which is the best for you, and which is not so good for you.
Memory Booster #1!!!!!
Grouping Information To group information is to put it a certain category. Place things in groups that make sense to you. For example, let's suppose you needed to memorize the following words: robin, movie, theater, baseball bat, hawk, house, and bowling bowl. It would be a lot easier to remember them when they are separated into groups. You can group the words like this:

type of birds = hawk + robin
places to watch a movie = movie theater + house
sports equipment = baseball bat + bowling bowl

Of course you can split up the words into other groups if you like. What ever makes sense to you!
Memory Booster #2!!!!!
Acronyms An acronym is a word that is made by taking the first letter from each word that you want to remember and making a new word from all of those letters.
For example, M.A.D.D. is an acronym for Mothers Against Drunk Driving
N.A.S.A. stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Memory Booster #3!!!!!
Acrostic An acrostic is a sentence that is made by taking the first letter from each word that you want to remember and putting another word beginning with the same letter. Sounds confusing?
For example, let's suppose you wanted to memorize the order of the planets from the Sun. The order is Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Take the first letter of each planet and keep the letters in order. That would be: M V E M J S U N P. Now think of a sentence that has nine words and starts with those letters. You can make the sentence silly too. I came up with the following sentence. My Very Exciting Mom Jumped Softly Under Nine Pillows. It makes no sense, but it is easy to remember. Try it!
Here's another example...to help you remember the first 8 U.S. presidents: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren. Take the first letters of each word and come up with the following acrostic: Would a Jolly Man Make a Jolly Visitor?
Memory Booster #4!!!!!
Repeating Information This is doing exactly what it says. It is a simple but very good memory booster. You must simply either write down or say out loud what you need to study. Even when you think you memorized it, make sure to repeat it several more times.
Memory Booster #5!!!!!
Visualizing Visualizing means to make a television picture of the information that you need to remember.
Memory Booster #6!!!!!
Telling a Tale When you are "telling a tale" the information that you want to remember is made into a story.
For example, let's suppose you wanted to remember the first three American presidents. You could make up the following story.....
George Washington was walking through a shopping mall when he saw his friend, John Adams. Mr. Washington and Mr. Adams decided to call their friend Thomas Jefferson so that all three of them could go to the movies and then a pizza pie afterwards.
Memory Booster #7!!!!!
Rhymes Try to make a jingle or rhyme to help you remember things. It is a chance for you to be creative. Here are some well known jingles used by students for many years...

Thiry days have September, April June and November...
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue...
You can make up your own rhymes to remember things.