You probably already know an acrostic sentence or poem from your childhood. As a reminder, this article describes how acrostics can help your memory. Remembering information is what you are trying to achieve. Mnemonic techniques such as acrostics create a more engaging way of absorbing and retaining information. Let’s look at what acrostics are and how acrostics can help your memory.
What Are Acrostics?
When using acrostics, you take the information you want to learn and create either a sentence or poem from the first letter of each item to memorize. To give you an example, here’s the acrostic sentence for people who want to learn all the planets:
My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune)
And one for the compass
Never Eat Sour Watermelons (north, east, south, west)
Hundreds of acrostic sentences already exist, but you can also create your very own by taking the first letter of each item of information you want to learn and creating a sentence.
But what about acrostic poems? Well, they work on the same principle except, each line of the poem begins with the chosen first letter. Here’s an example, if you wanted to remember the word SUN:
Super bright
Ultra-light
Never night
As you can gather, the sky is the limit when it comes to creating effective acrostics. What’s more, if you pen your own, you’re even more likely to remember the information.
Why Do Acrostics Work?
Now you know how acrostics can help your memory. In essence, they put the information you want to learn and retain in a more meaningful context. While it is difficult to memorize lists of names or terms, learning a sentence or poem is considerably easier.
No doubt, acrostics are a fun way to boost your memory.
