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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