I am so blessed to have another post for you during this mini-series month of March & Memory Work!! If you haven’t read Pam’s post on Creating an iTunes Playlist For Your Memory Work, do check it out! And also be sure you’ve seen the free resource Memory Work Made Easy that I created and shared with you a few weeks ago! Today’s guest post is from Brandy of Afterthoughts! Brandy’s posts on memory work inspired me when I first started reading through them, so I asked her to share a little bit of her organization tips with you!! Thank you so much, Brandy!
When it comes to memory work, there are two main practical considerations. The first is, simply, choosing the selections. What is to be memorized? This is the most important question of all. Of course, some people make it really, really easy for you.
The second question is how to organize these selections in order to maximize retention and minimize tedium. Today, I’m going to explain how I organize our family’s memory work {you can see all of our selections at my Memory Work Index} using a simple, tabbed, Memory Binder. This is not the only way to organize memory selections, but it works for our family.
The purpose of the Memory Binder is to easily control review frequency. This is so important. Reviewing too often can change a pleasant selection into something our students resist or, even worse, come to despise. But reviewing too infrequently means that the “memory” work is only “familiar” work — it is never actually committed to the memory at all. At the same time, I do not want to sit down each morning and ask myself what we need to be reviewing, or how often. This is especially true if I have not yet had my coffee!
This organizational system, which was inspired by the SCM Scripture Memory System, is set up in such a way that I don’t have to think about this process.
The binder is set up with four categories of tabs:
- Daily. This is where I put all our new work that we are beginning to learn. I do not introduce all new selections on the first day of the term, but every selection I want to introduce during the term is placed in this section on Day 1. This means that I only add things to this section once per term, or three to four times per year.
- Even/Odd. This is Step 2. Once we are pretty familiar with a selection, I move it to one of these two tabs. The words “even” and “odd” refer to the date. So, on March 24th, we’ll do the even section…and on the 25th, we’ll review the odd section.
- Days of the Week. Once a selection is almost memorized, I move it to one of my days-of-the-week tabs. I currently do not use a Friday tab because we have a Friday co-op, meaning we don’t do any memory review that morning. It is important to set this up to succeed — don’t start putting things in a tab you know you’ll never use!
- Category Tabs. My categories have grown as my children have gotten older. Right now, we have tabs for songs, poems, Scripture, catechism, and government documents. These are where I put all of our learned items. We revisit these on occasion. My ideal life would involve reviewing one selection from one or two categories per day, meaning that by the end of the week we had done at least one review from each category. But it doesn’t always work that way. I generally do what I think we have time for and don’t worry about the rest. {Note: I keep track of my place in these categories using little Post-It flags.}
: A Day with the Binder
So let’s say that today is Monday, July 2nd. I’d pick up my binder and flip to the Daily section first. This is where all of the new stuff begins. Next, we’d go to the Even tab, because the 2nd is the date, and it’s an even number. After that, we’d go to the Monday tab because the day is Monday. And finally, depending on how much time we have, I’d work through a couple of the review sections.
It really is that simple.
The key to this system is to move on. One reason I have so many sections is because I want to get us away from daily practice as soon as possible.When I first started doing this, I really had to think about making progress. It was easy to forget and just do the same selections over and over each day, ad nauseam. Like anything else, once I built the habit of progressing selections through the tabs, it became No Big Deal.
These days, making progress almost feels like it’s on autopilot. It takes me no time at all to quickly move selections around the binder. I do this about once a week, right after we’ve finished review, while the children are getting out their supplies for the Next Thing. I try my best not to pile selection on selection, but to keep moving. So, generally, when I move a selection from Daily to Even, I also move something from Even to a day of the week. Sometimes things do collect a bit in the days of the week tabs, being not quite ready to move to the hit-and-miss review of the category sections, but still this constant movement gives us variety and also keeps us from spending too much time on review.
::Content Reigns Supreme
It is easy to read an organizational post and forget about content, so I thought I’d try to bring us back to the Most Important Thing. We can set up binders and get good at systems and still totally miss the mark. Binders only work if they are full of Good Things. So, yes, make a binder, if this sounds right to you. But make sure it is full of things that are worth filling memories with in the first place. Might I suggest this as a criteria?
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. —Philippians 4:8
