[Trinia2]

I am a regular classroom teacher. I have two special education students who have poor short term memory. I will teach them how to do a problem, for instance regrouping in subtraction, and they will do it that day. Then we'll come back to it another day (after many reteachings), and they have forgotten. I have made up cue cards and that has not helped. How do you get these students to learn?

[gingercat]

I use mnemonics to list all the steps for my Students with LD/short term memory issues. For example:
27
- 9

Can I subtract the ones?
Over to the tens, borrow one
Add it to the ones
Subtract
Tens turn, subtract or bring down

COAST spells a real word for the kids and if you teach the strategy listing the letters and make the kids fill in the steps first, then have them try it with the math, it should provide enough repetition to make it stick

[SpEdTeacher]

maybe try using base 10 blocks to show that there aren't enough ones to subtract 9 w/out borrowing from the tens...? etc... complete the problem.

[1234567]

My own daughter has memory problems. We keep trying different things but have not found anything that works consistently. I am looking forward to reading other ideas. It is very frustrating and subtraction is particularly confusing for her. We will have to try coast. Thanks

[goldie23]

Visuals, visuals, visuals!!! I have a class of 18 students that I support in a student support centre for math and language. I find that the best ways to "lock" skills into memory is: 1) scaffold activity into manageable chunks 2) cue cards with formulaes, "recipes" i.e. A of triangle = 1/2 base x height 3) mneumonics that they can refer to on card on their desk i.e. King Henry's Daughter's make delicious chocolate milk (to assist with metric conversions) and repetition, repetition, repetition! Practice and more practice helps commit procedures to memory. Also, 4) manipulatives i.e. base 10 blocks. These are the strategies that I have found to help my students with memory problems.
Lastly, rather than teaching a unit (i.e. division) and then moving onto something else....I try and infuse division questions/practice into my curriculum all year long (i.e. bell work).....because I know that as soon as I stop, they will lose all the skills that we have practiced building.

[readsalot41]

Hi Goldie23-
I have some students with short-term memory problems too. Do you have any good tips for reading comprehension? One of my students reads a passage and cant answer questions about it 2 min. later? I have been surfing the net about this but I thought someone in the trenches could give some better advice. Thanks!