What is Working Memory?
Working memory is nothing but the capability to keep information active in your mind for a short time to be able to use it for other processing & detailing. Working memory is a temporary storage system & is necessary to perform day-to-day tasks effectively.
Working memory is important to boost academic performance as it is an important part of some essential functions like planning, initiating, task monitoring & organizing. At Gururgram Global Heights school, the subjects which get affected by poor working memory are Math, Reading Comprehension, Difficult problem solving, and Test-taking. From these also, Math & reading comprehension get most affected.
Look for these signs of a child with poor working memory:
1. Have a problem organizing/completing a task where multiple steps are involved.
2. They often miss details in the instructions given & fail to keep track of where they stand from assignment completion.
3. Make mistakes in writing & counting in the classroom.
4. Fail to self-correct classroom work.
5. Easily brings distracted mostly when not interested in an activity.
6. Find it difficult to wait for their turn.
7. Have poor organization skills.
8. Show low to average language capabilities added to poor academic performance.
9. Have a problem reading.
10. Demonstrate problems with math calculations in their head.
11. Find complex problem-solving challenging.
12. Most of the time prefer to be a loner, with the fear to be considered or rejected.
Here are some activities which can be conducted in school classrooms to enhance the working memory of children:
Teach Visualization: Support your students in the classroom to make a picture in their head of what they own just read or heard. Ask them to mentally picture what they must do for a specific task & then get them to draw that picture. As they get more useful at visualizing then just get them to describe what they can see in their head without including drawing it.\
Get Your Students To Teach You:
Encourage them to demonstrate how to do a new skill they have just learnt and teach you how to do it. By working on their explanation, it will help them to make sense of what they have learned & file it away in their memory.
Threading beads/building a block tower: Sit in a circle with a group/or face to face & each person takes a turn to say two colours that you both require to thread/build. Take turns to tell each other two colours & slowly increase the number of colours to get to thread/build onto their tower. This not only teaches them to wait for their favour but also how to work in a team collectively to reach a particular goal.
“Planning Items For a Picnic”:
Give your child the name of 2-3 things that they require to collect to bring to a picnic. Have them collect the items & bring them to a picnic rug.
Last Words:
We at Gurugram Global Heights School believe that in the end whatever works for a child should be introduced, sustained & monitored. No 5 fingers are not the same, similarly, each child is distinct & all the listed initiatives will vary depending on the level of the particular child. You also require to identify the dominant learning styles in a child to make him academically more powerful.
