Sunday, May 13, 2012

Early Grammar Stage Focus - Memorization

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This is part three of my series based on the article 10 Things To Do With Your Child Before Age 10.  To learn more about what I am doing, read my first post on Reading and Writing.

You can get this "10 things..." article plus SO much more information in the book Teaching the Trivium from the good people at Trivium Pursuit.

This week's focus is on Memorization.


Memorization sharpens and strengthens a person's mind. The above mentioned article says that this is so important for the early grammar stage because it prepares a child for more rigorous studies as their education progresses.

The article says that everyone should work on memorization, even the youngest of children.  We started having Trevor memorize Bible verses at the beginning of this school year, just as he turned 3.  I really didn't know what to expect from him, but his abilities have blown me away, so I definitely  agree with the article on the starting young point!

The article also says that time should be spent every day practicing memory work.  Honestly we started off the year dedicated to this, but as the weather has gotten warmer we have gotten lax.  A goal for next year is to be more focused in practicing out memory work every morning (and probably Bible verses again with daddy at dinnertime.)

You can have your child memorizing things like Bible verses (even in Greek or Latin), passages of literature, poetry, factual information (dates, lists, etc.), or whatever else you decide is important for your child to know!  This year all we did with Trevor was Bible verses (well, I guess also phonograms for reading if you want to count that).  Next year I would like to continue learning more Bible verses, but also add literature, poetry, history information, etc.  The planner in me really wants to schedule out exactly what I'd like for him to memorize by the end of the year, but honestly I have no idea what to choose at this point.  I think I will pick passages out of books that we read and maybe add some math or history facts as we come to them.

If you are new to memorizing, or if you have been doing this with your children for a while, but don't have a good system, I highly encourage you to check out the Charlotte Mason style memory box.  We have used it this year and it is fantastic!  It's nothing amazing in and of itself.  It's quite simple actually, but it works fantastically!  Take a look at my post on it if you'd like to learn more.

Goals to work on:

  1. Set a pattern of practicing our memory work every morning.
  2. Include other things to memorize (besides the Bible)
  3. Start including Mackenzie in memory time (even if it is just repeating what Trevor is memorizing)
  4. Have Trevor practice reciting his memory pieces in front of people (grandparents, homeschool group, etc.)

To see how we are doing on these goals, check out my follow up post, Memorization Re-Visited.

This post is a part of the following series:



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2 comments:

  1. We love memorization. Geography and history are really fun because our daughters will hear the names of countries and people on the radio or in conversations and you just see them light up when they make the connection and realize that they know what adults are talking about.

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    Replies
    1. My son is just like that too! We have not done formal history/geography memorization, but I'm looking forward to including it this coming year!

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