5 Effective Tricks To Enhance A Child’s Working Memory

Is your child having a hard time sustaining one bit of information in mind while doing another task? For instance, you are baking a cake together, and your child is in charge of whisking the batter, but your child leaves to answer a call and forgets to come back and whisk. Challenges with working memory can cause trouble with chores like this.

Working memory is basically the ability to keep information in mind while doing complex tasks. To put it simply, it refers to the way a person holds on to and works with information that their short-term memory stores. Children utilise their working memory at all times to learn. It is necessary for things such as solving a math problem mentally or following multi-step directions.

Enhancing working memory is one of the usual things taught in cognitive brain training in Singapore. As such, a lot of parents do not hesitate to sign up their children for these kinds of programs. If you wish to further improve your child’s working memory, this article might help you! Read on to find out some of the most effective tips on boosting a child’s working memory and overall brain development at home.

1. Develop their visualisation skills

Visualisation is one of the best ways to remember. As such, you should always encourage your child to create a picture in their mind of what they have just heard or read. For instance, you have asked your child to arrange a table for 6 people. Tell your child to imagine what the table should look like and have them draw it. As your child improves their visualisation skills, they can soon describe the picture rather than drawing it.

2. Play games that utilise visual memory

There are plenty of games that can help children work on their visual memory. This includes classic board games like Memory and trendy card games like Go Fish and Uno. These games either require children to memorise matching images or keep the rules in mind in order to win. By playing these games, not only will your child enhance their visual memory, but they will also be able to bond and have fun with others.

3. Promote active reading

There is a reason why sticky notes and highlighters are very popular — jotting down notes and highlighting or underlining text can assist children in sustaining information in their mind long enough to answer questions about what they are reading. Asking questions about the reading material, talking out loud, and employing other active reading methods can also help with working memory.

4. Encourage multisensory learning

Utilising multiple senses to process information can help not just with working memory but also long-term memory. Write all your tasks down, so your child is able to look at them. Say them out loud, so your child can listen to them. You can also walk around the house as you discuss the chores your child is required to complete. The use of multisensory methods can essentially help children retain information in mind long enough to use it.

5. Chunk information into smaller pieces

Have you ever wondered why social security numbers and mobile numbers have hyphens in them? The answer is simply because it is easier to remember a couple short strings of numbers than it is to remember a single long string of numbers. Similarly, it will be easier for your child to remember information if it is chunked into smaller details. When giving your child multi-step directions, it is recommended to give them one at a time.

Conclusion

Overall, working memory is important in children’s cognitive development as it enables them to hold information briefly in mind and process it. For this reason, it is necessary to encourage your child to improve their working memory as much as possible. You can do this by teaching your child how to visualise their thoughts, sharpen their visual memory, read actively, use their multiple senses, and retain information piece by piece.

To further boost your child’s working memory, you should also consider signing them up for a cognitive brain training. For the most effective and reliable enrichment trainings and classes, The Brain Academia is the learning centre you can trust! We offer fun and extensive cognitive brain training programs that will help your child develop and sharpen all their cognitive skills.

In addition, we also provide the best and most engaging English and Math enrichment programs in Singapore for children who are in need of learning assistance in these subjects. To find out more about our highly trusted and efficient programs, feel free to reach out to us today by filling up this contact form.