How are Acrostics Different from Acronyms?

Students are familiar in using acronyms to memorize facts or words in a particular order. An acronym is a mnemonic strategy that creates an abbreviation using the first letter from each word in the list, for example ROY G BIV, a name and an abbreviation for the colors of the rainbow. Another mnemonic strategy that uses the first letter to remember words is the Acrostic strategy. However the Acrostic strategy differs from acronyms in the fact that the first letters are used to create a sentence or a poem instead of an abbreviation. Thus to recollect the order of mathematical operations, the student may recall the acrostic sentence “Please Excuse My dear Aunt Sally” i.e. parenthesis, exponents, multiply and divide before adding and subtracting.

Long term retention and retrieval of facts and words are made simpler by learning using the acrostic method. Here’s how:

Meaningful information: The acrostic sentence makes the disconnected list of words or facts more meaningful and easier to memorize. Isn’t it easier to remember the order of the taxonomic classification of organisms using the acrostic “King Philip Can Only Find his Green Slippers” instead of kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species?

Chunking of information: Instead of remembering each individual word, students have to remember the chunks or the sentence primarily which in turn serves as a cue for retrieval of the information. Also the words in the sentence serve as a cue for the number of words the student has to recall.

Teaching the acrostic strategy:

While teaching the strategy to your students, it is essential that you instruct them to create the verse using common familiar words. For example “My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas” to remember the planets in order. Also encourage them to create active funny or interactive sentences as these are easier to remember.

To teach the strategy, first pick the set of words you want to create an acrostic for. Write down the first letter of each word on the board, next to which students have to suggest a common word. Thus, the activity encourages active student participation and learning to occur hand in hand.

You can then give the same activity to be performed in pairs or groups and assist students in the selection of words for formulating their verses. To help students become proficient in acrostic learning provide opportunities for practice and to create their own verses to remember the information.

Activities for the classroom:

Acrostic poems: Encourage the budding writer in each student by asking them to create an acrostic poem within a time limit. The poems will reflect the nature of the students and may range from witty to serious. Once completed, encourage the students to read out their poems and let the students vote on the best poet.

Acrostic features: Students are given a particular word and instructed to create an acrostic for each letter by focusing on its features e.g. FOSSIL.

Acrostic names: Create an acrostic for your name i.e. MIKE will be mighty, intelligent, kind and energetic. You can expand this activity to create an acrostic to remember the students in a group, names of teachers, the school mascot etc.

Discuss here: What are some Acrostics that you have used or created while teaching students?

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