Oral Report coming up!!! Need tips to help my son memorize

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

Yesterday I received a notice that my son (2nd grade) has an oral report (biography) due in a couple of weeks. So far, all my son’s reports have been somewhat of a failure because he cannot memorize the information and express his thoughts well. We have a couple of weeks and I’d really like for him to be at least a little successful this time.

ANY suggestions on helping him with memorization and recall of facts would be helpful. I will insist that my son be allowed to use notes (the assignment said that he couldn’t, but I will tell the teacher that he WILL be allowed to use notes). Of course, this won’t help him greatly because he can barely read.

One thing I’m hoping will be helpful is I’ve encouraged him to choose a biography about someone in a field he’s interested in (my son loves chess so he’s decided to do his report on Bobby Fisher).

Thanks for any help!!!!

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 03/05/2002 - 9:54 PM

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Hi Laura,

You’re definitely on the right track with a topic of interest. We have used videos about the subject my son has to report on. He loves to watch movies and even since 1st grade was able to relate and reenact what he sees in a movie. Maybe watching the video “Searching for Bobbie Fisher” from Blockbuster video (or any video store) will help him become very comfortable with the character and he’ll “absorb” him. Might sound corny but it worked for us. Hope it helps, good luck! Let us know how the report goes.

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 03/05/2002 - 10:53 PM

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Does he remember pictures better than words? You might want to find/draw key pictures to cue him about what to talk about.

I’m going to assume this does’t have to be a thirty minute lecture :)

Start with a picture of a kid in a cradle — perhaps with the key info like date and place …

Know how many “things” he wants to be able to say (but with the full understanding that if he forgets one of them it’s not th end of the world — nobody will even know). So if there are six things to talk about — birth, childhood, three important things, and a closing thing… have six pictures. (And it really helps to clump them and know how many there are…)

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 03/06/2002 - 5:16 AM

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Another idea to.

I do not know if he is to use visual ads or not,but one thing we did was to use a poster board detailing what they were discussing and have cards tape on the back of the poster. My kids would refer to the cards,as they held up their poster, and could then readily recall what they were talking about and noone even knew they had cue cards!

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 03/06/2002 - 4:48 PM

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Instead of notes on his 3/5 cards, put a picture. The picture can cue him as to what he wants to talk about next.

For the first, you could have a picture of a young child and he could talk about Bobby Fisher’s childhood.

For the last, you could have a big question mark to signify the obscurity that Bobby Fischer has lived in in later years.

If you go over the story of Bobby Fisher’s life with him, he may not need to memorize anything. He may absorb or learn the story well enough to tell it to others without memorization. Everyone can tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood and no one needed to memorize it.

Good luck.

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 03/07/2002 - 5:18 AM

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Visuals sounds like a good idea! Thank you so much for the ideas. I feel more positive about helping him tackle this challenge.
Laura wrote:

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