Strategies to Improve Memorization

Do you have a great deal of information that you need to remember? Here are some strategies to help improve your ability to memorize information.

To memorize a large amount of information, try one or more of the following strategies.

Break Information into Chunks

To retain a large amount of information, break it into smaller sections. Can you break the information into three or five groups? Can you find common themes that can be used to group the information? If it is a large text or book, break your studying into chapters or sets of pages and colour coding each chunk to aid retention.

Flash Cards

Create flash cards if you need to remember definitions of terms or concepts. Recipe cards are handy as they can be bought in a rainbow of colours and can be hole-punched (use a single ring to keep them bound) and are portable. Write a term or short phrase on the blank side of the card, and use the back to elaborate with details. To make the cards quickly, photocopy information to glue onto the back of the card.

To memorize the information, test yourself by looking at term or phrase to see if you know the information on the reverse of the card. If you get it right, put it in the “right” pile. If you get it wrong, put it in the “wrong” pile. Go through your stack of flash cards and then pick up the “wrong” pile and work through it again. Your goal is to get all the cards in the “right” pile.

Summary Sheets

Summarize the information using:

• flow charts to demonstrate a process
• tables comparing similarities and differences
• bullet points of important notes

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