What is Chunking?
You’ve been given an IEP for your child that includes instructional accommodations. One of those accommodations is chunking of information. You think to yourself …
What is Chunking?
The operative definition of chunking is grouping related items together so that someone can remember them more easily. An example of chunking is grouping the everyday items someone needs to have in their pockets before leaving the house. This might include house keys, car keys, cell phone, and a wallet or purse. Because these are everyday-use items and needed to function in someone's daily lives, this group can be "chunked" together for memory purposes. Chunking is a strategy used to improve short-term memory ability.
Chunking works because most people can only remember seven plus or minus two which is why phone numbers are chunked in three digits, three digits, and then four digits. There are a total of ten numbers, but because short-term memory cannot remember large amounts of information, information can be chunked together. Additional research argues that humans can only remember about four chunks of information at a time which still supports the chunking of phone numbers. Another chunking method can also be used with remembering everyday work processes, such as log in to the timecard, open some specific office programs, login into the phone, close office programs, log out of the phones, log out of the time card.
Chunking is taking larger groups of information and putting it into smaller chunks.
Here is a list of chunking techniques and chunking strategies:
Making connections: Making connections can be performed by thinking about how concepts or lists align with each other. For example, if you need paper towels, paper plates, plastic cutlery, paper bowls, soda, and frozen food, it would be easier to remember disposable kitchen items, soda, and frozen food.
Paired associations: Paired associations are when two words are or two concepts are remembered together. The idea is to pair the words together but it works better when there can be an association between the two words. For example, glass - milk. Usually drinking milk requires a glass which makes it an easier paired association to remember, but unrelated words or concepts can also be learned together because this is chunking information together.
Acronyms: Acronyms can be used to remember something. For example, "INTTDOL" might be used to remember "I need to take the dog outside later"
Acrostics: When creating an acrostic it is used to remember a word or procedure by creating a sentence. An example of an acrostic would be taking the biological classification of Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species into a phrase to remember it more easily such as "The Kids Put Crazy Old Fred in the Garage and Shut it.
Practicing: Practicing is breaking up what someone wants to learn into categories and then subcategories, and then using the categories and subcategories to remember the information. For example, if someone was preparing a speech on the government or a political issue, they might break up their speech into the three categories of the government; the legislative branch, executive branch, and judicial branch. They could then further divide the legislative branch into subcategories, such as republicans, democrats, and independents. Next, they could explain how to contact the legislative branch of the government and the importance of voting. Lastly, they could encourage their audience to take action. Practicing each section of the speech by rehearsing each category and subcategory would help the person use chunking to remember easier.
An example of the chunking memory strategy would be remembering the four pieces of the following technology as one related group; cell phone, computer, tablet, smartwatch. These are easier to remember because they are everyday-use items usually used in conjunction with each other. Another example of the chunking strategy is grouping all the items that someone might take on vacation together, such as clothes, a suitcase, a backpack, a passport or driver's license, a cell phone, a computer, and a tablet. The chunking technique works well because it is chunking the information together into one group.
Chunking Examples
These chunking method can be used for letters, numbers, names, and objects.
Numbers: A chunking strategy for numbers is that they can be chunked into groups of information. The most common way to remember numbers is in groups of three or four. This is often used with phone numbers. It, however, can also be used if someone wants to remember their credit card information. Credit cards are group into sixteen numbers, but a grouped in sets of fours. Someone could remember the four different groups of numbers rather than the numbers individually. Then, they could remember the expiration date and the CVV code separately, since the expiration date is usually four numbers and the CVV code is usually three numbers. Sequences of numbers can be chunked the best into small groups of three or four numbers at a time. For example, the phone number 3456542345 could best be chunked as 345-654-2345.
Letters: A chunking technique for letters is that they can be remembered together by making them into acronyms. For example, aka is short for also known as. Letters should be grouped into three or four groups or less at a time so that the memory of them can be properly chunked. When remembering the alphabet, it is best to remember three or four letters at a time chunked together to get to twenty-six letters in nine groups or less. When thinking about letters and chunking the information is best to remember them in alphabetical order, or as an acronym or small word if possible. For example, if someone needs to go to building C, in section B of the complex, by development A, the information could be chunked in the following way, CBA, and BSD. The person would know that the significance of the letters CBA to represent the order of the acronym BSD. This would mean building C, section B, and development A.
Names: A chunking method for names is that they can be chunked into names starting with the same name or in associated pairs. For example, someone might remember Julie, Jason, and Jack, and Anna, Amy, and Annie. Associated pairs could be used with couples or arbitrarily in a group. In a group, there might be Billy, Benjamin, and Brooke, Ralph, Larry, Spencer, William, Will, and Wen. The first letters of each name could be chunked together. Also, the unusual names that do not start with the same letter such as Ralph, Larry, and Spencer could be paired into their own group. Now someone would only need to remember and chunk the names starting with B and W and the unusual names that have their own group. In this scenario, someone would only need to remember four three chunks of information instead of eight different names.
For example to group morning to-do items in a chunk, it might be: make coffee, take a shower, brush teeth, eat breakfast, walk the dog, grab the car keys, go to work. This chunking example works because while these items are unrelated they are connected in the order the things need to be accomplished in the morning. This is an example of chunking short-term memory.
Why Chunking Information Works
Chunking works because humans can only remember a small number of chunks of information. Humans can remember either four chunks of information or seven plus or minus two. The magic 7 principles were created by George Miller in 1956. He argued that the capacity for someone's short-term memory cannot remember more than five to nine chunks of information at a time. Phone numbers without the area code are only seven numbers, which is why they are easy to remember. Also, zip codes are made up of five numbers and are very easy to remember.
Someone will have trouble remembering their credit card number because it is sixteen digits well above seven plus or minus two. However, if the reader attempts to do this exercise they will find out breaking it up into four different chunks of information for the number. Next, the reader can then use a chunk of memory for the expiration date and then another chunk for the CVV code with a total of six chunks of information will find that a total of twenty-three numbers is much easier to remember as six chunks of information. Another example of the magic 7 principles is that addresses rarely have more than five to nine numbers in the address of the business or resident prior to the name of the street. This is because the capacity of short-term memory can only hold seven plus or minus two chunks of information at a time, before forgetting starts to occur.
— December 16, 2023 Note —
Some of the materials herein have made it into my books, No Place for Autism? and Holistic Language Instruction. No Place for Autism was released in February 2023 from Lived Places Publishing and is available at Amazon and other major book retailers worldwide. Holistic Language Instruction will be out in 2024.