Christmas is over and we’ve rung in the New Year. For many parents thoughts are now turning to the new school year.

Let’s reflect for a moment on last year.

How was your conversation with your child as they arrived home from school every day?

Does this sound familiar?

Child bounds through the front door, dropping his school bag and rushing to hide his head in the refrigerator with a mumbled ‘urrghhh’ in response to your ‘what did you do in school today?’.

Most children when asked about their day at school respond with an ‘I forget’. You might think they are being uncommunicative however sometimes, they simply cannot remember.

It’s no surprise that their memory seems maxed out at the end of a day where the focus is on processing and storing different kinds of information.

From the moment you wake him up until you tuck him in at night your child is expected to remember everything from daily routines to the facts he is learning in class.  He needs to know letters and numbers automatically sohe can begin to read, spell, and solve math problems, and he must be able to record his own experiences in writing.

Remembering requires the ability to store information for a few seconds (short-term memory), then for several minutes while manipulating information (active working memory), and finally for an extended period of time (long-term memory). When copying spelling words from the blackboard, your child must first remember the sequence of letters, and then they need to write the words down without spending a lot of time looking back at the board. Some will whisper the words under their breath or repeat the letters out loud to help themselves. Later, they’ll have to memorize the words for a spelling test.

By giving your child opportunities to exercise his memory muscles now, you will be making it easier for him to handle the load of information in school.

Here are a few quick ways to boost your childs brain power before getting into the new school year.

Get the details.
You can have a long-term impact on memory development by including many questions and specifics in conversations about past events with their children. When you talk about a recent trip to the circus, for instance, ask your child, “What was your favorite act?” or “What did the big top look like?” Fill in the details if he can’t provide them.

Play memory games.
In the car, try games like “I’m going on a picnic, and I’m taking . . . ,” in which everyone has a turn adding an item and repeating the ones said previously.

The Brain Box range of memory games from The Green Board Game Co are beautifully illustrated, well researched and pure fun. Not just memory games but endless learning opportunties including geography, general knowledge, Math’s Biology and other sciences for ages 8 +.

My First Brain Box for ages 4+ is a great game for younger children with no words only fun images to recall. Brain Box is available in Australia at www.funatical.com.au

Suggest strategies.
Look for memory tricks that can help your child. For example, when you teach left and right, have her hold up both hands in the shape of an L. The hand with the forward-facing L is the left one. To help her recall how to read a word with two consecutive vowels, tell her, “When two vowels go walking, the first does the talking.”

Practice, practice, practice.
Offer to quiz your child on her spelling words or multiplication tables. Try repeating the numbers aloud with her to make them easier to recall. After testing her on spelling, have her highlight and rewrite the difficult words. Once your child realizes that memory is an active process, she’ll feel smarter and more confident that she can tackle tricky topics.

And now that you have your child all ready to get back to school here is something else to think about?

How is your memory?