Some Thoughts on How Children Learn to Remember

Research on verbal labeling and short-term memory is reviewed. Labeling affects short-term memory performance differently at different age levels. Serial position analyses demonstrate that labeling improves performance at recency positions, but has a deleterious effect which increases with age at the primacy positions. With age, children increasingly rely on the use of their own rehearsal strategies to perform in memory tasks. Particular strategies are developed appropriate to particular task situations. Young children who do not rehearse spontaneously can be induced to do so. It is argued that, through experience, the child learns that his behavior determines how well he does. He is thus motivatedto perfect his strategies and to develop new ones.