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Home::Reference & Education
Memory and Attention in Children
Author : Debbie Cluff
What is the relationship between Memory and Attention in the
classroom? As a teacher, it is important to maintain the child's
attention, but does memory have a co-existence in this field?
Attention is seen as being important because, "we do not pay
close attention to much of the information to which we are
exposed, typically only scant mental processing takes place, and
we forget new material almost immediately". If attention is
important in retaining our memory, it is important to understand
what our memory does and how teachers should understand these
patterns and processing levels which determine a child's
thought. One might suggest, "The best way to remember new
information is to consider it thoroughly when you are first
exposed to it-reflecting on how it relates to information that
you currently know" (Feldman, 2000). A teacher needs to learn
how to keep the child's attention in the daily lesson plans and
focus on maintaining the child's long-term memory. Memory is
defined as, "the process why which we encode, store, and
retrieve information" (Fogel, 1991). This means that our
students have to process 3 steps in order to remember the
information taught in class. The teacher is in need of
understanding these steps in order to incorporate memory into
their lesson plans. The three main concepts of memory, also
referred to as the memory storage systems, are Sensory Memory,
first thoughts lasting an instant, Short-Term Memory,
information held between fifteen to twenty seconds, and
Long-Term Memory, permanent memory (Feldman, 2003).
Understanding these three different systems can help a student
move the information taught in class from their sensory memory
to there long term memory. In order for this to happen a teacher
must move the information provided through all three different
systems before a students can retain the information to the
fullest. Typically in a classroom, material is presented and
the information is remembered or not remembered. Most teachers
have not found out the "secret" to placing information in their
students minds without having them forget it before lunch time.
If looked back upon personal classroom experience, one can
easily remember a few specific lessons their teachers provided.
For example, in 5th grade Ms. Ferrell had the class learn about
the world by putting the students in news groups. Each student
was to report on a specific topic and they were then video
taped. How is this remembered? This project kept the students
attention long enough to place this memory in the long-term
system. This is how teachers need to incorporate the lessons
that are most important to the learning system. "Therefore, it
enters memory at a deeper level- and is less pat to be forgotten
than information processed at shallower levels" (Feldman,
2000).The lessons need to be interesting and captivate the
child's attention long enough to provide a specific memory of
that lesson plan. "At the deepest level of processing,
information is analyzed in terms of its meaning" (Feldman,
2000). This is every teacher's dream, the key of processesing
and remembering in our students. A fascinating aspect of child
development is memory and how young memory starts to observably
work. One way for children, and adults, to strengthen their
memory would seemingly be to challenge their memory
continuously. An example of memory development would be that of
the Rovee-Collier's mobile experiment. In this experiment Rovee-
Collier hangs a mobile in a crib and watches to see if the baby
responds to this mobile by either kicking his legs or other
attention responses. After three minutes of observing the baby
with the static mobile, she then attaches a string to the baby's
leg and to the mobile. The purpose being that when the baby
kicks, the mobile will move. Days later, if the baby kicks upon
sight of the mobile, we know that the baby has remembered that
kicking produces the desired effect. The infant has already
learned the behavior; now he has just proven his memory of this
behavior. The study goes on to say that a two month old can
remember this for a day; a three month old, over a week; a six
month old can remember the desired behavior without having done
it for over two weeks. The child's memory is tested at a young
age and is able to remember what she has learned. Teachers will
need to understand that repetition and challenges are so
important and is proven at such a young age in this experiment.
This information is hooked into the child's memory and is
utilized by the child, his desired behavior. In order for the
child to adapt he must rely on his knowledge and memory of how
he has dealt with situations in order to achieve the desired
outcome (Bee, 2000). As children get a little older there are
many other memory strategies that they are able to use. Some of
these strategies are: rehearsal, clustering, elaboration and
systematic searching. Some of these strategies are utilized as
early as the second year of life. The number of strategies that
a child has in his repertoire would seemingly correlate to the
amount of information he is able to learn and process. As the
child grows he increases the proficiency of these strategies,
thereby maximizing the efficiency of his learning. There are a
few ways that we can help children to maximize their memories in
order to aid in learning. Research shows that when teaching
children reading, developing good phonological skills will help
students to accurately store and recall words (Dixon, 2002).
Most theories about reading acquisition suggest that children
must develop an internal dictionary and store all the words they
have seen in order to read fluently (Dixon, 2002). Further
research reveals that this type of memorization actually makes
it more difficult for children to recall words as their
vocabularies increase (Dixon, 2002). The idea is that phonics
help children to associate words with something else that they
can relate to easily making the recollection process easier.
There are other studies that show that another way to help
children to expand their memories is to tap into their
autobiographical memories. This means that memories can be more
easily accessed by having children associate information with
events that occur in their lives (Wang, 03). In order to use
some of these techniques a teacher must be able to hold the
attention of the students in the classroom. The following are a
few tips for maintaining attention. 1. Speak with authority and
don't be indecisive. A voice of authority is always firm. 2.
Bring the class back into focus from distractions by clapping or
singing instructions. 3. Turn off the lights. 4. Use a good
stare. Silence can shape a noisy class back into attention. 5.
Outline and enforce consequences. (Duebber, 2000). If the
students see that you are serious, they will likely follow your
lead. In the classroom it is so important to learn and
understand that memory and a child's attention should be part of
the daily lesson plan. A student is best helped if the teacher
is educated in all the aspects required to the child's
development; memory and attention are an area of that
requirement. A child's memory is based on the attention that is
given to the lesson plan and the section of the brain that will
remember that lesson forever.
References Bee, H. (2000). Child and Adolescent Development
(9th ed.) [e-text]. Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing.
Dixon, M. and Stuart, M. (2002, December) Phonological Awareness
improves word recall. Literacy Today, 33, 20. Duebber, D. (2000,
May) Substitute teaching: sink or swim. Educational Leadership,
57, 75. Feldmen, R. (2000). Essentials of Understanding
Psychology (4th ed.). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts.
Folger, A. (1991). Infancy: Infant, Family, and Society (2nd
ed.). West Publishing Company: University of Utah. Wang, Q.
(2003, January) Infantile Amnesia reconsidered: a cross-cultural
analysis. Memory, 11, 65.
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