Poor Short Term Memory Capacity

Introduction

One element of learning to read is that you have to hold various complex bits of information in your short term memory. There are the phonemes in a word, then when you have blended those you need to keep the word in memory while you look for the meaning of that word, you then hold that while you do the whole thing again and then you hold a series of words in memory as you form a sentence.

So, all this stuff is shooting around in a particular very temporary area of the brain. If your capacity for memory in this area is overloaded, then you will lose part of what you are trying to remember and the reading process will fail.

The Solution To Poor Short Term Memory Capacity

The brain is very malleable. The more you use any part of it, the stronger it will become.

So, first of all, reading practice will actually improve your ability to be able to read.

Second, as your reading improves, elements of the process begin to become automatic. That means they are not putting a load on your short term memory.

It is a bit like driving a car. When you are learning, everything has to be thought about and you are very busy. But a year later you can drive along chatting to your passenger.

Reading is the same. The more practise that you get the easier it becomes and the more spare capacity you have for processing the meaning of the text.

During the 6 month Easyread course a child will read over 25,000 words. That builds a lot of experience.

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