Memorizing States and Capitals Link to help make it easier

Oh gosh are they still doing that!? The schools are trashing phonics and still want kids to learn the states and capitals. Who remembers such drek?

—des

Michelle AZ-

You must have read my mind. I was just telling my daughter today that the hardest part of 5th grade for her is learning those states and capitals.

I’m adding this website to my favorites.

Thanks.

Michelle, it might sound like I’m knocking you. I’m not. Just sorry they are still having kids memorize that. I’ve been out of the public school loop for a long time now. I’m glad your doing your part to help the kids.

—des

Michelle,
It’s actually a cool link with the mnemonics and other information! Thanks.

Des:

<<Oh gosh are they still doing that!? The schools are trashing phonics and still want kids to learn the states and capitals. Who remembers such drek?>>

I don’t really think it’s important that students actually remember states and capitals or other types of trivial information to succeed in life, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea for children to have to do exercises in memorization. If nothing else, it is a good exercise for improving concentration and memory.

Schools are just beginning to recover from the years when phonics, spelling and grammar were absent from the curriculum—all areas of study in which memorization plays a big part. I still can’t get over the fact that some state mastery tests will give the students credit for content in creative writing prompts, but not take into account that sentences are grammatically incorrect or that words are spelled incorrectly.

Just my opinion—

Marilyn

Yes but, phonics, say is meaningful, and it does help to memorize the multiplication tables after you know the concepts. I don’t know, has anyone ever seen any data saying that memorization of meaningless info is helpful in any way. There is a lot of more meaningful stuff to memorize, imo.

—des

I do think it is important to know where the states are located. I was an exchange student in Brazil and was amazed that those kids knew so much more about the world than I did. We are so ignorant as Americans. While I’m not sure memorizing the capitals is super important it is nice to at least be able to know one city in each state just to make converstaion now and again with new people. When I went to college out of state I met tons of people from all over. It is nice to know where all the people are from.

When I went to Hawaii, some said “when we get back to the states..” They should have said “mainland”.

SOmetimes we dumb things down so much in school, especially in special ed when the kid can learn it. I for one want my own 3 kids to know the difference between a continent/country and know all the states. I don’t want to see my kids on the Tonight SHow with Leno not being able to answer questions.

My kids go to a school where they have one “cottage theme” or thematic unit each quarter. The curricullum is very enriching. IF YOU TEACH THEM THEY WILL LEARN. We need to have high expectations. My own kids can remember stuff from years ago from their themes that blows me away. They can remember detail about all kinds of things. If it is too hard for some then fine but I like to post these kinds of links to help those that need some extra help.

I think geography is important, but reading is more important.

Just my thoughts,

Michelle AZ

OK, this is one of those subtle ones. Hard to explain and I just wait for someone to misunderstand and jump on me.

The thing is, learning the state capitals should not be all that hard. I’m from Canada and so I didn’t know all of them (But bet you I can beat the average American on this). I remember when we moved to the US and my daughter had to memorize the whole list — the usual lousy teaching method — I learned Dover Delaware and Montpelier Vermont and a couple of others, just by helping her.

How to make it easier — and *much* more useful:
First, learn basic skills. Don’t fuss over learning an irrelevant list of capitals when the student can’t even read the list. Good reading skills, smooth and automatic decoding, basic comprehension, are the fundamentals. Once the student can actually read the information, learning about the states will make a heck of a lot more sense. Or, if your student is severely dyslexic and you have to do oral teaching, work on that decoding most of the time and at least see (2) below.
Second, make it meaningful. Do NOT just recite the list. Look at a map and find all the states and locate each capital on a map. Buy or borrow some books about the USA, preferably with lots and lots of colour illustrations, and look at each state. Or use the internet and internet encyclopedias. What do you see in the way of scenery, plant life, climate clues such as plants and clothing? Read about the state. What do people do for a living there? What do you see in the illustrations that shows you the economy? Now, why was the capital placed where it was — what do people do there? What about history? Was the capital formerly more important, and has modern development overtaken it (eg Albany NY, not NY NY) After finding out a little about each state and each capital city, you will find then the name of the city will stick in the memory as a place you know something about, not a random collection of noises. If at all possible, take some day trips and visit a couple of state capitals amd see some sights. Sure it takes more time to do this — the first time. But you don’t have to re-do it a hundred times because you retain the information, so you win in the longer run. And you have learned something worth knowing.
Third, when you come down to test cramming, use classic memorization technique. Read *out loud*. Use *rhythm* for your recitation. Recite over and over again. Space repetitions, morning and night for a week. *Overlearn* — don’t go until you can get most right, or even all right; go a hundred times more until you can (and do) recite in your sleep. This approach works for anything, from multiplication tables to the quadratic formula to French verbs.

Memorization is a tricky issue. Of course comprehension is vital; memorization without comprehension is what a computer does, and we know that computers can’t create, can’t look to the future, and can’t make judgements on real-world fuzzy information; they can just repeat what they are told to do. On the other hand, trying to teach comprehension without any known facts to base it on is doomed to failure — what are you comprehending? You need a base of facts to work with. The two have to go hand in hand. Memorizing the list of capitals without the maps and pictures is pointless and in general doomed to failure; the noises leave the memory as fast as they were crammed in. On the other hand, learning about the country you live in is fascinating and gives you a knowledge base to build on later in almost any field.

Bad example: a lady from New Mexico called up to buy Olympic tickets in Atlanta. The operator told her that from Mexico she had to call the international office. The lady attempted to explain that NEW Mexico was a part of the USA. The operator said, “New Mexico, Old Mexico, it’s all the same.” This became a rather wide-spread news item, and one can be sure that operator didn’t get any promotions. So even if you stay home and work as a part-time telemarketer, it’s still a good thing to know a few things …

It is a proven fact that students who make a formal study of a foreign language tend to do better in academics in general, and one of the best languages for this effect is the most formally taught, Latin. One of the advantages is simply learning to absorb/memorize new vocabulary and new structures. Similarly students who learn formal mathematics tend to do well in many other fields. The brain learns to learn.
But it is important to do these things bit by bit, as in any skill or exercise — you start out in primary school with a few addition facts and spelling words at a time, you move up to the quadratic formula and some speeches from Shakespeare and some poems and several French tenses in high school, and then you can learn anything you want to in college. The mistake is to assume that no memorization at all should be demanded of little kids, and then to dump a huge job like the whole list of fifty states all at once as the first memorization exercise.

Oh I think it is important to know where the states are and countries for that matter. The US has a very poor geography record! But knowing that Maine is in New England and that is NE is different than the memorization load (that some kids— but not all kids will have) of learning 50 states and capitals. I agree that it wouldn’t be hard at all for some kids. I had autistic kids who could hardly say a sentence, but could handle that.

BTW, I have been “victim” of the little problem with New Mexico. Amazingly common. I was wiring someone money (this is when I lived in Illinois) and I was wiring it to NM they said, “oh no, you need an international form,” I emphasized the NEW part thinking maybe he didn’t hear it, no this didn’t help at all the guy was still convinced that NM was not part of the US. Amazing!

I think that geography is important. I think they found that many people here did not know where Iraq was.

—des