The education landscape in Singapore is so competitive and tough that a great number of parents have resorted to hiring private tutors for their children. Good tutors can help students improve greatly in their studies, and provide them with the learning edge to stay ahead of the competition. You can check out Family Tutor in case you are looking for a competent tutor for home tuition Singapore has to offer.
Apart from aiding students in their studies, really good tutors will also impart relevant learning techniques that will guide students to learn topics and study better. One such popular learning technique is the use of mnemonics. What exactly is mnemonics and how can tutors help your child learn better by utilising it?
There are numerous forms of mnemonics but the technique most tutors explain to students mainly involves using short words, phrases and sentences. Tutors impart this kind of mnemonics to assist students to recall and remember information such as lists and word spelling more easily.
Here are the main steps most tutors will impart to students.
- 1) Students will be asked to pick a word or a list of words they would like to know how to spell or remember.
2) For the first letter in the word or the first word on the list, they must think of a suitable word to replace it with and write it down. Where possible, they must ensure that the word is wacky, funny, weird, appeals to them, and they can easily relate to it.
3) They must then repeat the previous for the remaining letters in the word or words in the list. In addition, they must also ensure that all the replacement words will eventually form a cohesive and easy to remember phrase or sentence.
And there you have it, three simple steps for students to follow to use mnemonics. Next, the article will show you some simple examples of mnemonics.
Let’s say you want to remember how to spell the word mnemonic. If we utilise the 3 steps above, we can come up with the following mnemonic: Memory, Needs, Every, Method, Of, Nurturing, Its, Capacity. So a simple mnemonic for remembering how to spell the word mnemonic is “Memory Needs Every Method Of Nurturing Its Capacity”.
The second example we’re going to show you involves remembering a list of words. Let’s say we have the following list of words to remember: Gamma, X-Ray, Ultraviolet, VisibleLight, Infrared, Microwave, Radiowave. Again, if we utilise the 3 steps above, we can come up with the following mnemonic: Grandma, X, Urinating, Visible, Light, Violently, In, My, Room.
Hence, “Grandma X Urinating Violently In My Room” can be a simple mnemonic to remember the list of words Gamma, X-Ray, Ultraviolet, Visible Light, Infrared, Microwave and Radiowave. Incidentally, this is an actual mnemonics that tutors teach Physics students who are learning about the topic on the electromagnetic spectrum.
There are numerous other types of mnemonics that students can come up with to greatly assist them to remember words and long lists of words in various topics such as halal food in singapore. The key thing to note is that the mnemonic does not have to be perfect or bombastic, rather it just has to be something that appeals and is relatable to the students.