Learning techniques to improve memory in children: a systematic review

It is critical to promote solid and long-lasting learning techniques in children and adolescents worldwide, including the most underprivileged ones, to improve various aspects of life. Consequentially, research should identify learning techniques that are beneficial for school-age children and that could be easy and inexpensive to apply in educational settings. We systematically reviewed 75 experimental papers that examined the effects on children’s episodic memory of the most effective learning principles identified in adults’ research: distribution of study time (i.e., spacing study sessions is better than massing as shown in the spacing effect), retrieval practice (i.e., retesting at study is better than restudying as in the testing effect), and encoding enrichment (i.e., creating multiple pathways for retrieval is better than relying on fewer pathways, as found in levels-of-processing effect, generation effect, production effect, self-reference effect, and survival effect). We found that these techniques had a beneficial effect on children and adolescents, regardless of their ages. Additionally, we checked whether the materials used in the experiments were educationally relevant. Few experiments have used these materials, except for the testing effect. Researchers interested in the area should undertake projects that help to unveil to what extent these learning techniques could be useful with educationally relevant materials. A starting point could be to use materials more ecological in lab settings and then move to schools to test curricula content. We conclude that the reviewed learning techniques are low-cost and effective and can be a powerful tool to improve memory in children and adolescents.