The Catch Sentences Technique can be an effective tool to help you memorize many seemingly unrelated items. This memory trick is especially helpful for memorizing items or facts in an exact order. We know from recent hemispheric brain research that our brains act as computer file folders, slotting newly learned information in the same file as already-learned information that fits within that same file. This technique connects ideas or items together, just like our brain file folders do. If we take the time to organize new information in same way as our brains, we can improve our retention of that information.
Catch Sentence Examples
Do you remember these catch sentences from school?
Every Good Boy Does Fine-for the notes of the scale: E G B D F
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally-for the order of operations in math: parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction
King Henry Died by Drinking Chocolate Milk-for the units of measurement prefixes: kilo, hecto, deca, base, deci, centi, milli
Directions
For each key word that you want to remember, use the first letter of each word as the first letter of a new word that will fit into a memorable new sentence or phrase. You can add in other words to your sentence if they won’t confuse you. Substitute concrete objects for any key words that are too abstract to remember well.
Let’s use the Catch Sentences Technique to memorize the first ten presidents of the United States in exact order.
- Washington
- Adams
- Jefferson
- Madison
- Monroe
- Adams
- Jackson
- Van Buren
- Harrison
- Tyler
For each president, use the first letter of each name as the first letter of a new word that will fit into a memorable sentence or phrase. The more personal or unusual the sentence—the better. How about this one? “Why are jerks making money always just very happy tycoons?”
Notice that “jerks” takes care of the confusion between Jefferson and Jackson by using “je” at the start of the word and “making money” does the same for Madison and Monroe.
Now prompt yourself to remember each name by referring only to the above catch sentence. Works well, doesn’t it? Remember that adding in a conjunction, such as “and,” or an article, such as “the,” won’t throw you off and may make the sentence easier to formulate.
Memorizing using the Catch Sentences Technique will enable you to retain the memory of many seemingly unrelated items. Frequent rehearsal of the categories and their items will place the information into your long-term memory. Useful for upcoming tests, names, speeches, lectures, shopping lists? Absolutely.
For more free teaching resources, check out Mark’s website at penningtonpublishing.com.