Multimodal Instructions
Overview
Instructions in multiple formats allow students to activate different cognitive skills to understand and remember the steps they are to take in their math work. Instructions can be given as text, visuals, gestures, or audio to facilitate increased student retention in Working and Short-term Memory.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch how these teachers provide multimodal instructions by using visuals in addition to verbal communication. By referring to visual aids, such as written text on the whiteboard or gestures, they convey the same information in multiple formats to support memory retention.
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Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More External Memory Aids Strategies
Rhyming, alliteration, and other sound devices reinforce math skills development by activating the mental processes that promote memory.
A mnemonic device is a creative way to support memory for new information using connections to current knowledge, for example by creating visuals, acronyms, or rhymes.
Easy access to seeing the relationships between numbers promotes number sense as students see these connections repeatedly.
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Timers help students learn to self-pace and transition.
A word wall helps build the mathematical vocabulary and Language Skills that are necessary for problem solving.