MEMORY IS THE ABILITY TO RETRIEVE INFORMATION THAT HAS BEEN PREVIOUSLY UNDERSTOOD.
“My child just can’t remember!”
When I hear this statement from a parent or educator, my mind switches into a questioning mode.
What kinds of things don’t they remember? Can you give me an example of what they can’t remember? Is it just one thing? Is it multiple things? Is it situational? What’s happening when they can’t remember? Is the information they don’t remember visual or auditory? Is the difficulty in remembering information or numbers?
No, I don’t badger the witness; I just wonder. The good news is that I don’t have to wonder long.
Fortunately, with the SOI assessment, we have the answers to many of these questions. Even better, with Memory Matrix we have the tools to develop these various types of memory regardless of the form they take.
“Memory is the advanced art of paying attention.”
Is it that you can’t remember or that you don’t attend to the task? There is a difference. This is the advantage of the SOI. We can pinpoint skills and abilities and focus on specifics and build those skills.
Memory is not a skill that is purposefully developed in today’s education systems or in everyday life. Therefore, many students are at a loss when asked to perform memory tasks. Students say they don’t memorize their facts because they will have a calculator. Until then, fingers are great manipulatives and readily available.
We don’t bother to remember the meaning of difficult words or the sequence of events because have Google. Students tell me, “I don’t need to know this. I can just look it up.”
Teachers tell me, “We can’t spend valuable teaching time on this. We have to stay on the curriculum schedule. We have to be sure the tested information has been covered.”
…and so it goes.
SOI defines eighteen different memory abilities. The Form CR tests for six of those that have been identified as necessary for successful learning:
- MFU – the ability to remember incidental visual details
- MSUv – the ability to remember visual symbols
- MSSv – the ability to remember visual sets, series, and sequences
- MSUa – memory for auditory details and symbols
- MSSa – memory for sets, series, and sequences presented aloud
- MMI – the ability to remember and draw implications
Memory Matrix, coupled with the FSM Memory Kit, enables the educator or parent to successfully address many kinds of memory and increase a student’s ability to not just remember, but to understand.
written by: Renee Anderson, SOI Systems Senior Program Consultant
Renee is the founder of Synap2it! Learning Development Center.
