Memorizing isn’t the same as understanding

Dr. Linda Silbert

Dear Dr. Linda,

My daughter Lynette’s history teacher had Lynette and her other students write words and their definitions on index cards to study for an upcoming test on the American Revolution.

With practice, Lynette was able to define each word perfectly and received 100% on the test. I was happy for my daughter, but when I asked her who was involved in the Revolutionary War, she had no idea. She didn't know that the war was between the colonists and the British. In fact, she didn't even know that the colonists won the war, much less that the Red Coats were the British. I’m also a teacher and am very concerned with my daughter’s schooling.

-Lynette’s Mom

Dear Lynette’s Mom,

Beware of index cards! Obviously, Lynette could parrot what was on the card since she received a 100% on her test. But did this pile of index cards help Lynette learn? No. Why? Because recall, especially of terms, is only the bottom rung of the levels of knowledge.

Memorizing words on flashcards or index cards facilitates learning at a basic level but doesn't help with understanding. Unless students can also explain in their own words what words and concepts mean, nothing is really learned. Successful rote memorization is not sufficient for higher order understanding.

In the end, Lynette’s 100% revealed nothing more than an ability to memorize. She knew nothing of what happened during the American Revolution or why.

And while we’re talking about index cards, many foreign language students spend hours memorizing vocabulary words using index cards or even pre-made decks of Spanish or French vocabulary words, for example. A word is written in English on one side and the foreign language word on the other side. Often this isn't enough. When they do poorly on the test, they conclude that they simply can’t learn a foreign language.

The problem isn't that they can’t learn a foreign language, but that they’re studying incorrectly. Although many foreign language tests involve a spoken part, the largest portion of these tests requires the student to write the words. Unless students practice writing the words and putting the accent marks in the proper places, they’ll fail the test. But even when they know the rules for accents, writing the words still helps with memorization. Now students are memorizing using their kinesthetic sense too.

These same principles apply to flash cards for arithmetic facts. In addition to saying the answer out loud, students also need to write out the facts. Many students will benefit from having small objects to move so they can touch and see that three small sticks or marbles added to another pile of three sticks or marbles is a total of six objects.

Even when a subject lends itself to memorizing such as in spelling, vocabulary words, and arithmetic facts, students will memorize more quickly and have greater recall for a longer period of time if they've learned the material in several different ways. For example, students can try writing, speaking, using objects, walking (or any physical movement) while saying the material, and even singing.

But back to index cards. Yes, they do work when the assignment is strictly recall and work better if the student uses several different ways to learn the material. But even then, the words or facts need to be chunked, which means grouped into three, four or five cards to learn at a time. Once the small groups are learned, they can be put into a larger group of cards.

The bottom line, however, is that most learning requires understanding the material. Memorizing doesn't help with understanding.

-Dr. Linda

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