Memorizing with Pictures

Pam’s Fall in Love with Morning Time video on using the Memory Palace technique to learn an Emily Bronte poem made me think of how often we use not only images to help remember things, but physical drawings, as well.

Memorizing with Pictures

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I’ve written a post titled Including Pictures in Memory Work that illustrates just how my daughter Gv has used this strategy over the years. Click on over to see examples of what this looks like in our house.

But the really cool thing I discovered after this poetry session with Pam was that my little trick of adding drawings as cues for Gv to remember things has been proven to work by experts.

The research supports using drawings to memorize

University researchers in Canada concluded that drawing what you want to recall actually gives you the best chance of remembering it!

And the best part is that the quality of these drawings doesn’t seem to matter because the benefits will be there, regardless.

Another 1972 study showed that memory is actually a by-product of how deeply we process information. When we draw something we’ve read or learned, we must engage and integrate many parts of our brain. This results in deeper learning and therefore gives us a stronger, better memory of it.

Child memorizing

It makes sense when you think about it, but unless you’re a super-creative family, you might not have thought of using drawings and sketches in this way.

How we memorize with pictures

In our house, not only have we found that pictures help Gv remember whatever it is she’s trying to memorize, she and I have an awful lot of fun coming up with the ideas for the images we want to use as reminders.

Consider adding in pictures or sketches the next time your kids need to memorize something. Even if you’re not an artist, it can be a fun “artsy” activity to do together and create plenty of great memories!

Has anyone in your family ever used drawings to help memorize something? I’d love to hear! Leave a comment below or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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