The study of history is largely a matter of Remembering What You Read.
Children who have difficulty in remembering what they read, as a rule,
do not like to study history. The lesson made into a visual picture
will fix the points in mind with one reading, but this reading must
not be careless or hasty. Help the child to read slowly and to pause
long enough to make a mind's eye picture of each circumstance and
change. It will be helpful to take a piece of paper and draw the scene
of the battle. Mark in roughly the hills, mountains and rivers. Show
the positions of the opposing armies, then roughly sketch the changes
which take place. This drawing will help you to make a definite picture
impression.
Take advantage of the pictures on the page of the book. The child's
mind will naturally associate with the picture the many circumstances
happening before and after, if he hears or reads them while the picture
is visible.
For example, the picture of the landing of the Pilgrims on the shores
of Massachusetts will bring to mind the facts which led to their making
the journey. It will also suggest circumstances after the landing.
Those stories and facts which the child hears, while looking at the
picture, are joined with it in the mind by the law of association, and
the operation of the same natural law will tend to recall them whenever
the child sees the picture.
A series of large pictures, which all of the class can see while the
history lesson is being studied and recited, would help in fixing
the facts in the minds of the children. Children who are taught to
visualize can form their own pictures and have a wonderful advantage.