Help with student with short term memory

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amother

OP ↓

Sun, Oct 27 2019, 3:53 pm

I am doing P3 with a child who is in 5th grade who has an extremely short term memory. I am beginning to teach her multiplication but I am looking for a way to teach it other than songs/chants. She learned it already through songs, but because of her short term memory she forgot it all. If I teach her with a song she is just going to forget it again ( I have to start with the 2 times table and she is in 5th grade). Anyone have any ideas on teaching it?

TIA

teachkids ↓

Sun, Oct 27 2019, 4:02 pm

Might be worth teaching her to use a chart quickly and get it written into her iep /504 as an accommodation

meyerlemon44

Sun, Oct 27 2019, 4:02 pm

Following

mum22

Sun, Oct 27 2019, 4:13 pm

Information should be chunked up- small amounts of information, taught in a multi-sensory way- engage all senses.
Strong visual cues can create mental imagery. Use a variety of tangible resources.

anonymrs

Sun, Oct 27 2019, 6:23 pm

Why don't you work on her short term memory with games/activities? It can be just 3-5 minutes at the beginning of each session. Some quick ideas are
memory game, recite the alphabet backwards, count backwards from x number.

Say the name of the color:
blue
green
purple
yellow
black
orange

or say the name of the color

f g l m n x t w s

put out 10-20 random items, study them for a minute, put them away and see how many she remembers.

Put 3-5 items in a box, look at them and talk about them. Then cover the items and remove one when she's not looking. Uncover and see if she can identify the missing item.

You can play "I went on a trip and took along ______" Each player says one new item, after listing all the previously said items. You can do this first in alphabetic order to help her out, then mix it up.

imasinger

Sun, Oct 27 2019, 7:41 pm

What is her best way to remember? Visual? Kinesthetic?

seeker

Sun, Oct 27 2019, 9:19 pm

First of all, from the phrasing in OP, I'm not sure that short term memory is the issue.

There are a lot of tricks for memorizing and improving memory. But with regard to multiplication facts, I find that some kids do better with internalizing the number sense rather than memorizing facts. This will also serve them better in the future because they will have a stronger conceptual understanding of multiplication than some of the kids who can rattle it off by rote. How's her number sense in addition/subtraction? Has she been evaluated for dyscalculia?

I started going into detail but then I went back to the OP and realized the child is in 5th grade. It's still important to work on the number sense angle, but at this point they are going to be doing work with more digits and moving faster, so they need a reference chart on their desk and permission to use it.

↑ teachkids

Mon, Oct 28 2019, 2:17 am

teachkids wrote:

Might be worth teaching her to use a chart quickly and get it written into her iep /504 as an accommodation

I just want to add that about half the kids I give this accommodation to end up memorizing a decent number of their facts as they use them without the stress

Yummymummy3

Mon, Oct 28 2019, 3:37 am

Have you heard of Numicon? It's amazing for teaching any math. Maybe look into it and see if that would help. I use it a lot with SN kids. It's used for mainstream kids too.

bnm

Mon, Oct 28 2019, 9:52 am

I have that issue with one of my kids. I gave up at the end of 4th grade and had her use a chart when doing homework. She was doing long division with carrying and getting the answers right once she used the chart...

amother

Cyan

Mon, Oct 28 2019, 12:00 pm

maybe she should sing the times table in a little recorder and she should listen it again at night in her bed

amother

↑ OP

Mon, Oct 28 2019, 4:08 pm

Thank you everyone for the ideas!

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