Mnemonic is a Greek word every home school student in home school should encounter. In its olden day on the Aegean, the word meant “mindful,” or “to remember.” Now it is used in English as a noun to describe something meant to aid the memory, or a mnemonic device. One mnemonic device sure to be familiar to every home school student is the proverbial ‘string on the finger' to remember an errand or chore. Mnemonic devices can play a fun and useful role in a home school student's work load, especially with list-type knowledge. Every home school program is bound to cover the order of the planets from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. It is easier to remember and recall when the first letter of each planet's name is indexed with the phrase: “My very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas.”
The value to a home school student is apparent. It is more efficient to tie rote material to an easy and instantly decipherable code than to make and use flash cards. Not only does this author still remember the order of planets, but also the mnemonic device learned and last used almost 20 years ago. Another common mnemonic device a home school student will no doubt find useful has two iterations for remembering the classification system for living things. Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, Variety: this is easier to remember as “Kings play cards on fairly good soft velvet” or “Kings play chess on fine green sand.” Throughout the course of home school, a student may even make up their own mnemonic devices or mnemonic devices.
Anatomy is a particularly challenging subject in home school, medical school, or any other school for that matter. The sheer number of things to remember makes something like learning all the cranial nerves a daunting home school topic. However, “On old Olympus' towering tops a fat angel girl viewed Spanish hops,” clearly reminds us: Olfactory, Optic, Oculomotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Abducent, Facial, Auditory, Glossophryngeal, Vagar, Spinal Accessory, Hypoglossal. Well, most home school students can probably wait a few years before needing this last one.
There are other mnemonic devices, such as making acronyms like Roy G. Biv for the orders of colors of the spectrum: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. However, whatever the mnemonic device's form, its value and function in home school should now be clear. Not only should a home school mentor introduce these aids to students, but should encourage their use as well.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, author, children's rights advocate, and Founder and C.E.O. of Learning by Grace, Inc. She and her husband of almost 3 decades reside with their 8 children in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. because "our current system of education has broken its promise..." Learning By Grace, Inc. delivers Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children in the United States and throughout the world.
Rothschild has authored a number of books about education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Daily Education News Blog contains feature stories on alternatives in education.