Scott Bornstein’s Memory Techniques for Vocabulary Mastery from Bornstein Knowledge Management Sys., LLC is a book designed to help anyone not only expand their vocabulary but improve their ability to learn new vocabulary and remember it’s meaning. This comprehensive spiral bound book will teach you 1600 new vocabulary words while also teaching you techniques to remember new words you encounter in other classes or settings. All you need besides this book is an imagination, 10-15 minutes a day, and set of index cards. This $29.95 book can be helpful for Jr. High and High school students (and older) preparing for tests and college entrance or anyone who just wants to improve their vocabulary or memory.

This program teaches powerful memory techniques for remembering words and their meaning. Using imagery and imaginative associations your student will quickly memorize new vocabulary. There are 42 sections and each section contains 20 vocabulary words, 3 root words and examples of their uses, and review exercises. The first 15 sections include associations for each word to demonstrate the skill, the student simply needs to read and internalize the association and create a mental image to go with it (sample images are also included for some words). Sections 16-42 provide sample associations and allow the student to practice creating his/her own associations. The beginning of the book provides tips and instructions for use.

I looked over this book with the intent to use it for my own benefit but found that I already know most of the vocabulary and already naturally use the techniques suggested. I had my 12-year-old daughter use it as a vocabulary study. She said that she already makes similar associations naturally as well but the vocabulary presented was good for her and much of it was new.

This is a great option for a general vocabulary study for any Jr. High or High school-age child and should help improve reading comprehension, writing, and test-taking abilities. If that student isn’t already proficient at vocabulary memorization or doesn’t use the particular techniques presented in this book it could certainly benefit overall memory skills. For college students and adults this would be a great study for someone who struggles with memorization in general or vocabulary memorization specifically but if you already have pretty good memory skills and a large vocabulary it probably isn’t for you.

I plan to continue using this program with my daughter and will likely use it with my other children when they reach Jr. High due to its comprehensive presentation of vocabulary and its simple, straightforward approach.

-Product review by Sabrina Scheerer, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, June, 2018