Silly Songs
Children are natural learners
They are great examples for how to learn. They use rhymes, songs, and repetition.
Little kids tend to have favorite songs or stories. For my youngest daughter, it was an exercise-for-kids song that she wanted played over and over. Importunely for me, the shrill voice of woman pretending to be a kid drove me up a wall. But my daughter loved the song and wanted to hear it over and over and over and…
Kids love repetition. For nearly 3000 years, people have known that rehearsal (the formal name for repetition) helps memory. To keep things in short-term memory, we repeat the words or numbers over and over. You’ve probably noticed that if someone gives you a phone number to call and you have to go into another room to get your phone, you repeat the number over and over. This is the same process students use with flash cards. We use repetition to learn lists, and actors use it to remember lines.
Rehearsal
We use rehearsal because it works. It works because we can choose to leave it in short-term memory and forget it after we are done with it. Or we can practice it longer so the hippocampus has enough time to consolidate the memory into long-term memory.
The context of children’s repetition is usually rhymes and songs. They are really the same thing; song just have better melodies.
Rhymes are very effective memory aids. Well into the 14th century, most information was recited in rhymes and poems. Rules of commerce, ethics, social behavior were taught and learned in rhyme. Modern versions of this technique include “I before E, except after C” and “30 days hath September, April, June…”
The poems don’t have to rhyme; any ode will do. In fact:
The best rhymes are those you make.
If you have a list of things you need to remember, turn it into a rhyme. Add a rhythm to it and you have chant or a rap. And a melody and you’ve got at song.
If you’re still working on the Gettysburg Address, add a beat or melody to it. Think Hamilton!
Of course, you can use songs other people have created. You probably remember the “Fifty Nifty United States” by Ray Charles (no, that’s THAT Ray Charles). How about Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just A Bill” sung by Jack Sheldon (yes, THAT Jack Sheldon; trumpeter & comedian)? Or Hannah Montana’s Bone Dance? And there is the very popular “ABCDEFG” song. But you can also make up your own. When a child rehearses a phone number or list, they will often sing it, making up the tune as they go. The music doesn’t have to be good, just memorable.
With practice, when you generate your own songs, rhythms and rhymes, you’ll find it becomes easy.
There are two general categories of mnemonics (memory techniques): naive and technical. Technical mnemonics require a bit of training but naive mnemonics come naturally to us. Naive mnemonics are things people automatically do when they want to remember something. They take no training. We do them automatically.
When in doubt, backward chain and sing a silly song.
ASSIGNMENT
Here are ten words. Make a silly song out of them. You can rearrange them, add words, and do whatever works for you. Have fun!
- native mnemonics
- forward chaining
- repetition
- rhymes
- rhythms
- songs
- technical mnemonics
- backward chaining
- 12 days of Christmas
- Four score and seven years ago
SUMMARY
I hope you had a good time.
Want a reward? Here is a certificate you can download.