KidLit: I Before E (Except after C): Easy, Cool Ways to Remember Facts (Young Readers Edition)
Thanks to a little volume titled I Before E (Except after C): Old-School Ways to Remember Stuff, I will never again be embarrassed—or have to think twice—about the way I spell “embarrass” or “weird,” two words that never look correct no matter how I spell them. I Before E, written by Judy Parkinson and published by Readers Digest Books, is a compendium of mnemonic devices that includes all manner of facts from spelling to lifesaving and beyond, along with cues to help remember them (“Do you turn Really Red and Smile Shyly when embarrassed” reminds us of the double r and s; “Weird doesn’t follow the i before e rule, because weird is just weird” reminds us that…well…weird is weird).
Susan Randol supplies memory tips to the younger set in I Before E (Except after C) for Kids: Easy, Cool Ways to Remember Facts, also published by Readers Digest Books. Some of the suggestions are similar to the adult version (embarrass: “I turn Really Red and Silently Shake when I’m embarrassed”; “WE are considered WEird”), but there is a plethora of memory aids for things that are important for kids to know (if they want to appear as intelligent as they really are).
Rhymes, puns, and silly sentences along with a variety of visual cues are provided for reading, writing, history, math, music, our planet, clocks, calendars, and the sky. How wonderful to have such an easy resource when trying to memorize (oooh, that awful word) lists of countries or states, rules of grammar, and the three types of triangles (“Everyone Is Someone” = Equilateral, Isosceles, and Scalene).
Remembering back too many years to laboring over the thirteen original colonies—I’d always leave one out and Father would insist I start over…and over…and over—I wish I had I Before E (Except after C) for Kids: Easy, Cool Ways to Remember Facts. Although…its advice does help me get through some senior moments.
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