1. Increase Attention. Students will not remember something that they did not pay attention to in the first place. Be sure your students' memory problems are not really attention problems. Use strategies for enhancing attention, such as intensifying instruction, teaching enthusiastically, using more visual aids and activities, and reinforcing attending.
2. Promote External Memory. Many things that need to be remembered can be written down, a practice known as "external memory." Practices such as keeping an assignment notebook and maintaining a student calendar can be helpful in remembering to do things. Unfortunately, external memory is usually of little use (ethically, anyway) on tests.
3. Enhance Meaningfulness. Find ways to relate the content being discussed to the student's prior knowledge. Draw parallels to the students' own lives. Bring in concrete, meaningful examples for students to explore so the content becomes more a part of their experience.
4. Use Pictures. Pictures can provide a memory advantage. Use pictures on the chalkboard or on the overhead projector. Bring in photographs or other illustrations. Show concrete images on videotape, when appropriate. If pictures are simply unavailable, ask students to create images, or "pictures in their heads."
5. Minimize Interference. Avoid digressions and emphasize only the critical features of a new topic. Make sure all examples relate directly to the content being covered.
6. Promote Active Manipulation. Students remember better if they actively think through new information, rather than simply repeating it. For example, rather than simply telling students that penguins carry their eggs on the tops of their feet, ask students why it makes sense that penguins would carry their eggs on the tops of their feet.
7. Increase the Amount of Practice. Students remember information better if they have practice using it more frequently. Use lots of review in your teaching; do not simply finish one topic and then never mention it again. Remind the class, and have students practice previous information frequently.

All these strategies can be used to improve memory, and all should be considered. Unfortunately, none of these strategies specifically targets recall of information contained in new or unfamiliar words, and this is the aspect of memory where students most often fail. For example, in the Scruggs, Mastropieri, Bakken, and Brigham (1993) investigation, students who engaged in active manipulation remembered more information about electricity and rocks and minerals than students who studied from textbooks. However, neither condition improved recall of critical vocabulary or terminology, the area where mnemonic strategies are most effective. In the following section, we describe several different types of mnemonic strategies that can be used to improve students' memory