Mnemonic Strategies

Maha Sabah Ismail- Tikrit university

1.0 Preliminary Remarks

More than 100 years ago, Hermann Ebbinghaus was the first to conduct

an experimental investigation of human memory (Ebbinghaus, 1885).

Since then, memory and knowledge recall have been investigated in

hundreds of studies, resulting in a systematic body of knowledge about

the mechanisms of learning. What is truly remarkable, however, is that

despite the soundness of the discovered phenomena, practical application

of these findings are still rare. However ,there are very few learning tools

which incorporate scientifically validated principles to create a highly

productive and individualized learning environment. In his works,

Ebbinghaus tracked his own ability to memorize and retain a set of

nonsense syllables and he found that reviews of material to be most

effective if they come at spaced intervals (Ebbinghaus, 1885).

In the early 1970's Sebastian Leitner developed a flashcard study

system that employs spaced repetition to maximize long-term retention of

study material (Leitner, 1972). In his system , Leitner found another

factor that positively influences retention rate which is the incorporation

of mnemonic items. It is derived from the ancient Greek word

mnemonicos ("of memory"), the term "mnemonic strategy" denotes the

usage of items such as acronyms, rhymes, visual information or stories

that improve memory storage and retrieval. Mnemonic strategies can also

be actively used for instruction to "improve recall by systematically

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integrating specific retrieval routes within to-be-learned content"

(Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1992), and have been shown effective for

learning facts and data in a wide variety of subjects and for learners of all

ages .It should be kept in mind, though, that mnemonic associations are

influenced by cultural background and personal history(Carney and

Levin, 2000).

1.1 The Notion of Mnemonics

Mnemonics devices are structured ways to help people remember and

recall information. Mnemonic instruction combines presentation of

important information with explicit strategies for recall. It is most

commonly employed in areas where individuals are required to recall

large amounts of unfamiliar information or to make associations between

two or more units of information at recall. Mnemonics can be applied to

any domain requiring recall of information. Mnemonics can be used with

students across a wide age range(Levin, 1993). Though younger students

are usually not required to learn and recall the large amounts of facts that

are required of older students, associations linking the letter “A” to

“apple” or the letter “G” to “glasses” employ mnemonic principles.

Mnemonics has been well researched and validated for students with

learning disabilities, as well as for typical students at all levels of

education. Most recall tasks involve organizing and associating

information relative to some sort of prompt, such as an exam question.

Mnemonics provide cognitive tools to help individuals make these

associations. Some basic principles of cognitive psychology help to

explain how mnemonics work (Finke, 1989).

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1.2 Mnemonic strategies

Mnemonic device is any learning technique that aids information

retention. Mnemonics aim to translate information into a form that the

brain can retain better than its original form. Even the process of merely

learning this conversion might already aid in the transfer of information

to long-term memory. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often used

for lists and in auditory form, such as short poems, acronyms, or

memorable phrases, but mnemonics can also be used for other types of

information and in visual or kinesthetic forms. Their use is based on the

observation that the human mind more easily remembers spatial,

personal, surprising, physical, humorous, or otherwise 'relatable'

information, rather than more abstract or impersonal forms of information

(Gambhir,1993).

Mnemonic techniques vary in complexity from those that are extremely

simple to some that are quite complex. The trick to good mnemonic

encoding is picking the right mnemonic tool for the job. Most often,

mnemonic strategies rely on both verbal and imagery components to

support recall (Graves & Levin, 1989).

1.2.2 First Letter Strategy

This strategy uses the first letter of each word or phrase to be

remembered to make a meaningful word or phrase and it includes

acronyms and acrostics. Acronyms creates new words by merging the

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first letters of a listing of words. Each letter of the phrase then stands for

one feature of the to-be-recalled information. Common examples of these

techniques are: “Homes” (for the names of the Great Lakes: Huron,

Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior) and STAB (the four common voices

in a chorus: soprano, tenor, alto, and bass).

According to Scruggs and Mastropieri (2000), acrostics are comparable

to acronyms but consist of sentences. The first letter of each word in the

sentence stands for a different word and is useful when information is

needed to be remembered in order. The most common example include

“kids playing croquet on freeways get smashed,” to remember life science

classification system which consists of :

Kingdom, Phylum, Class,Order,Family,Genus,and Species. Another

example is“King Henry died an ugly death called mumps,” to remember

the names of metric system's prefixes of: Kilo, Hecto, Deka, Unit, Deci,

Centi, and Milli (Finke,1989). Similarly, Mastropieri and Scruggs

(1991) suggested the sentence “George’s elderly old grandfather rode a

pig home yesterday” to recall the spelling for the word “geography.”

Clearly, the first letter strategy organizes the information into

meaningful chunks and provides cues to help the student recall the target

information. The cues provided by the first letter are, however, minimal

and may not be sufficient to help some learners. Additionally, the target

information must already be familiar and meaningful to the learner.

Therefore, the acrostic “ Ten Zebras Bought My Car “ would be of little

benefit to a student attempting to recall the names of the branches of the

facial nerve (Temporal, Zygomatic, Buccal, Masseteric, Cervical) unless

the student was already quite familiar with the terminology (Reitz:1994).

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1.2.2 Keyword Strategy

This strategy is considered the most effective and adaptable

mnemonic strategy. It is effective because it increases

concreteness and meaningfulness of newly acquired

information, and because it ties the new information with the

prior knowledge(Scruggs&Mastropirie,2000).

Mastropirie and Scruggs(1991) describe three steps involved in the use

of the key word mnemonic strategy:

First, students reconstruct the term to be learned into an

acoustically similar, familiar, and easily pictured concrete terms.

Second, they select a keyword and relates the new information in

an interactive picture, image or sentence.

Third, student retrieve the appropriate response by thinking of the

keyword, recalling, the interactive picture and what is happening in

the picture, and then by stating the information.

For example, to help students remember the word barrister is

defined as a lawyer, students first create a keyword for the

unfamiliar word. A good keyword is for barrister is bear. Then,

students create a picture of the keyword and the definition

interacting together. Thus, a picture of a bear and the lawyer in one

picture is not a good mnemonic because the two objects are not

interacting. A better picture is a bear that’s is acting as a lawyer in

a courtroom in front of the jury. Finally, the student would retrieve

the keyword, bear, recall the interactive picture, A bear acting as a

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lawyer in a courtroom and state the desired word

barrister(Scruggs&Mastropirie,1991).

1.2.3 Pegword strategy

The Pegword strategy can be used when the order of information is

important or when the to-be recalled information involves numbers.

pegwords are short words that sound like numbers and are easy to picture.

Pegwords are short, rhyming words for numbers and include(1) one is a

bun,(2) two is shoe, and (3) three is a tree. (Levin et al. 1983)

Mastropierl and Scruggs (1991) provided an example of pegwords to

recall the reasons for dinosaur extinction in decreasing order of

plausibility. Reason number two was that the swamps may have dried up.

This fact and its plausibility ranking were represented through a drawing

of a dinosaur wearing shoes (pegword for two) and walking past a sign

that said “Dry Swamp.” At the time of recall, the learner recalls either the

dry swamp or the dinosaur wearing shoes and then reports the other part

of the image. Thus, a learner may think, “I remember a picture of a

dinosaur wearing shoes, what was he doing? OK, walking past a dry

swamp, so reason number two is the swamps dried up.”

Pegwords are extended beyond the number(10).For example,11 is

lever, 12 is elf, 13 is thirsting.

To create a pegword, Schumaker et al,(1998) offered the following

steps:

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First, students use the pegword strategy with items in a list that

can be pictured and that must be kept in certain order,

Second, students organize the critical items to be recalled in the

correct sequence.

Third, students link each item in the list to the right pegword by

picturing the two together in a small picture,

Fourth, students combine the entire picture in one picture.

1.2.4 The loci Strategy

Locus means location or place and its plural is loci. Millennia ago,

the Greeks and later the Romans used this strategy to memorize

information that was important to them. The origin of this strategy

belongs Legend attributes its origin to the famous Greek poet Simonides,

who lived some 2500 years ago. Simonides had been invited to give a

speech at a banquet, but when he stepped out to receive a message, the

building collapsed, killing all the guests. He was later able to recall the

identities of all the victims who died in the mishap by mentally

reconstructing the banquet table, having originally memorized the

position in which each guest had been seated when the tragedy occurred.

The Romans further developed it into a sophisticated technique they

referred to as architectural mnemonic, in books on the subject

This strategy involves associating information with known places, in the

order a person would move through the location. This is one of the oldest

systems for which any evidence remains (Yates, 1966). D. Brown (2006)

gives an example of remembering all of Shakespeare's plays, in order, by

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walking through the Globe theater. Some uses of this system are also

known as “Memory Palaces.” (Int. Ref. No. 1).

Loci strategy involves making associations between facts to be

remembered and particular locations. In order to remember something,

you simply visualize places and the associated facts. It is based on

choosing a familiar place, such as your home. Create a visual or spatial

map in your mind. That is, visualize it in as much detail as possible – its

surroundings, how it looks from different views, and from inside its

rooms. Think of everyone and everything you normally find inside, all

the things you do there and memorable events that may have happened

there. Take the items you wish to memorize and associate them with

different aspects of the house that you have identified. So if you wish to

remember the Boston Tea Party, think of a big party at home where

everyone drinks tea. If you want to memorize a sequence, think of

yourself moving into, out of or around the house, doing various things

and linking the items with familiar places actions or objects in a sequence

that should be strictly followed while recalling them.

This strategy is backed by research on how the brain works and has

been used effectively by memory champions. This strategy is helpful to

those who are visual learners who prefer visual learning style, such

learners can use the loci strategy to memorize their course material or

other information of practical relevance to you. (Int. Ref. No. 2).

1.2.5 Mnemonic link Strategy

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This strategy is sometimes known as a chain strategy, is a way of

remembering lists that is based on creating an association between the

elements of that list. For example, when memorizing the list (dog,

envelope, thirteen, yarn, window), one could create a story about a "dog

stuck in an envelope, mailed to an unlucky thirteen black cat playing with

yarn by the window". It is argued that the story would be easier to

remember than the list itself.

Another technique used in this strategy is to actually link each element

of the list with a mental picture of an image that includes two elements in

the list that are next to each other. This would form an open doubly

linked list which could be traversed at will, backwards or forwards. For

example, in the last list one could imagine their dog inside of a giant

envelope, then a black cat eating an envelope. The same logic would be

used with the rest of the items. The observation that absurd images are

easier to remember is known as the Von Restorff effect, although the

success of this effect was refuted by several studies which found that the

established connection between the two words is more important than the

image's absurdity( Einstein, 1987).

In order to access a certain element of the list, one needs to recite the

list step by step, much in the same vein as a linked list, in order to get the

element from the system.

There are three limitations to the link system. The first is that there is

no numerical order imposed when memorizing, hence the practitioner

cannot immediately determine the numerical position of an item; this can

be solved by bundling numerical markers at set points in the chain or

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using the peg system instead. The second is that if any of the items is

forgotten, the entire list may be in jeopardy. The third is the potential for

confusing repeated segments of the list, a common problem when

memorizing binary digits. This limitation can be resolved either through

bundling or by using either the peg system or the method of loci. (Int.

Ref. No. 3).

1.4 The Implementation of Mnemonic Strategies

Teachers developing or searching for mnemonic materials are best

advised to focus on factual material in the curriculum. Keyword

mnemonics are particularly well suited to factual recall tasks and are not

intended to enhance “higher-order skills” and problem-solving. Factual

information and vocabulary knowledge is extremely important in the

success of students in content area classes (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1992).

Keywords are very appropriate for unfamiliar and abstract vocabulary

because they link the information to be learned with words that are

acoustically similar and already known to the learner. It is important to

structure the instruction to provide abundant practice and support for

students developing their own mnemonics. To help students develop their

own keywords, King-Sears et al. (1992) suggest the following steps:

• Identify the term.

• Tell the definition of the term.

• Find a keyword.

• Imagine the definition doing something with the

keyword.

• Think about the definition doing something with

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the keyword.

• Study what you imagined until you know the definition.

King-Sears et al. (1992) and others (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1991)

have reported that when students generate their own strategies, instruction

tends to move at a much slower rate. Because time is limited when

students generate their own keywords, often less instructional material

can be covered. (Int. Ref. No. 4).

However, several questions regarding this technique remain

unanswered. To date, we do not have comprehensive data on whether

mnemonic procedures have the potential to “close the gap” between the

achievement of students with and without disabilities when delivered

in inclusive settings. Individual research studies have shown that large

amounts of material can be conveyed by using carefully controlled

procedures which ensure that students receive a great deal of practice

with the individual mnemonic devices (Levin, 1993).

Little is known about the effects of mnemonics with culturally and

ethnically diverse students. Specifically, the important function that

mnemonics serve is in linking unfamiliar material to already known and

concrete materials. Students who do not share the culture of the majority

of students in the classroom may not profit from the same mnemonic

materials. As with any strategy, mnemonic instruction must be considered

in relation to the background knowledge and capacity of the students for

whom it is intended (Swanson, 1999). Another unanswered question

relative to mnemonic instruction is the degree of confusion students will

find when presented with a number of mnemonic devices at once. It

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remains unclear how many mnemonic devices can be acquired and used

in a given period of time. Finally, The generalization of the use of

mnemonics is essential for students to gain independence and to move

toward independent learning. (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1992).

The mnemonic strategies are not replacements for studying. They

assist in recalling information but require that the information already be

in memory somewhere. However, the act of creating an image may

sometimes be sufficient to add the information to memory (Lorayne &

Lucas, 1974). As explained before , whichever mnemonic technique is

applied the uses go beyond memorizing lists of vocabulary. With

practice, any sort of information such as faces, names, dates, and second

or foreign language vocabulary and grammar can be remembered

(Brown, 2006).

1.5 The Application of Mnemonic strategies in Foreign language Teaching Setting

Mnemonics can be helpful in learning foreign languages, for example

by transposing difficult foreign words with words in a language the

learner knows already. A useful such technique is to find link words,

words that have the same pronunciation in a known language as the target

word, and associate them visually or auditorially with the target word.

For example, in trying to assist the learner to remember ohel, the Hebrew

word for tent, the memorable sentence "Oh hell, there's a raccoon in my

tent" can be used. In Arabic, a way to remember the word, bayit, meaning

house, one can use the sentence "that's a lovely house, I'd like to bayit."

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The linguist Michel Thomas taught students to remember that estar is the

Spanish word for to be by using the phrase "to be a star". ( Yates,1966).

Another technique is for learners of gendered languages to associate

their mental images of words with a colour that matches the gender in the

target language. An example here is to remember the Spanish word for

"foot", pie, with the image of a foot stepping on a pie which then spills

blue filling (blue representing the male gender of the noun in this

example). (Int. Ref. No. 5).

1.6 The Effectiveness of Mnemonic Strategies

Interventions using mnemonic instruction have produced some of the

largest instructional gains recorded in the special education literature

(Swanson,1999). It should be noted, however, that the impact of Teachers

employing mnemonics should expect their students to recall substantially

more target material than they would without the technique. However,

they should not be surprised if their students do not recognize the need

for mnemonic devices in other areas of instruction. Building in forced

generalizations and However, Mnemonics vary in effectiveness for

several groups ranging from young children to the elderly. Mnemonic

learning strategies require time and resources by educators to develop

creative and effective devices. The most simple and creative mnemonic

devices usually are the most effective for teaching. In the classroom,

mnemonic devices must be used at the appropriate time in the

instructional sequence to achieve their maximum effectiveness.

(Scruggs& Mastropieri, 1992)

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Mnemonics are seen to be more effective for groups of people who

struggled with or had weak long-term memory, like the elderly. Five

years after a mnemonic training study, a research team followed-up 112

community-dwelling older adults, 60 years of age and over. Delayed

recall of a word list was assessed prior to, and immediately following

mnemonic training, and at the 5-year follow-up. Overall, there was no

significant difference between word recall prior to training and that

exhibited at follow-up. However, pre-training performance gains scores

in performance immediately post-training and use of the mnemonic

predicted performance at follow-up. Individuals who self-reported using

the mnemonic exhibited the highest performance overall, with scores

significantly higher than at pre-training. The findings suggest that

mnemonic training has long-term benefits for some older adults,

particularly those who continue to employ the mnemonic.

Studies have suggested that the short-term memory of adult humans

can hold only a limited number of items; grouping items into larger

chunks such as in a mnemonic might be part of what permits the brain to

hold a larger total amount of information in short-term memory, which in

turn can aid the creation of long-term memories.

Teachers employing mnemonics should expect their students to recall

substantially more target material than they would without this strategy.

However, they should not be surprised if their students do not recognize

the need for mnemonic devices in other areas of instruction. Building in

forced generalizations and applications will be essential for teaching

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students to utilize mnemonics in a broader context ( Willoughby& Wood,

1995).

1.7 Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Mnemonics

Mnemonics serve an important role in memory, but they have

limitations and should be used sparingly. If they used too extensively,

they become cumbersome and can add confusion to learning process. If

they are not used the mnemonics accurately, they would hinder rather

than help recalling information accurately. The following chart shows

the advantages and disadvantages of using mnemonics. (Int. Ref. No.6)

Advantages of Using MnemonicsDisadvantages of Using Mnemonics

1. They provide a memory bridge to help recalling information that otherwise is difficult to remember.

1. They must be recited and practiced in a precise manner in order to work correctly.

2. They involve rearranging or reorganizing information, which also helps personalizing the information and making a more active learner.

2. They require time to create, learn, and practice.

3. They add interest to studying by providing new ways to work with information.

3. They can become "crutches" and can give a false sense of security that knowing the information.

4. When used properly, they allow spending less time retrieving

4. They rely more on rote memory than on elaborative rehearsal, so the

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information from long-term memory.

actual understanding of the concepts may be inadequate.

5. Overuse can result in confusion and an excessive expenditure of time reviewing.

Conclusions

1. A mnemonic strategies refer to the learning techniques that aids

information retention. Mnemonics aim to translate information into a

form that the brain can retain better than its original form. Even the

process of merely learning this conversion might already aid in the

transfer of information to long-term memory. Commonly encountered

mnemonics are often used for lists and in auditory form, such as short

poems, acronyms, or memorable phrases, but mnemonics can also be

used for other types of information and in visual or kinesthetic forms.

Their use is based on the observation that the human mind more easily

remembers spatial, personal, surprising, physical, humorous, or

otherwise 'relatable' information, rather than more abstract or

impersonal forms of information.

2. Mnemonic strategies are consciously used to improve memory, it

helps employ information already stored in long-term memory to

make memorization an easier task.

3. The most common mnemonic strategies used are as follows:

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A. First Letter strategy.

B. Pegword strategy.

C. Keyword startegy.

D. Loci strategy.

E. Mnemonics Link Strategy.

4- Mnemonics are proved to be helpful in learning basic facts and new

vocabulary, which are needed to be acquired when learning a new

subject. However, mastering a subject is not simply a matter of knowing a

lot. An expert has a well-organized network of memory codes into which

new information can be easily integrated. Mnemonic techniques on their

own do not help understanding the meaning of facts, and do not therefore

help you develop expertise in a subject.

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