fjzh, you've mentioned a strategy of your own in passing, when you described yourself as doing better with reading than with listening. Glance back at the description of working memory as the whiteboard of the mind. Well, a straightforward compensatory strategy for having a small mental whiteboard is externalizing it--write things down. In order to reduce the working memory component of an abstract reasoning or conceptual understanding task, use visuals--including graphic organizers, encourage her to write steps down, scribe steps for her as she verbalizes them, provide her with reference charts.
Aim for conceptual, big picture, understanding before introducing the nitty-gritty components; it will give her a meaningful framework into which to place the details, so she won't be holding a disorganized mass of isolated points in her mind, but a small selection of connected conceptual categories. This reduces the effective number of points on her mental whiteboard. Make sure she understands the personal relevance and practical application of academic skills and knowledge. She will have more vivid "hooks" for organizing them. Along with this, experiential learning is likely to be more effective than isolated skills instruction. Perfect for relaxed homeschooling!
And you are homeschooling, so you don't have to design a factoid-laden education for her. In the long-term, professionals rarely memorize; they remember the most frequently used figures, formulas, etc., but use their reference works for everything else. (I remember investing time into memorizing various metabolic cycles in undergraduate biochem class, and then entering graduate school and finding that many labs had them posted on the wall.) As she is relatively early in her education, and not actually incapable of memorizing, it is reasonable to include some level of memory work for math facts or handwriting, or spelling, as these are skills for which automaticity can smooth the way for higher-level problem-solving, but I would separate basic skills work from reasoning/conceptual work.
Allow her to follow her passions; you may even be able to co-opt them to weave in some other academic skills or content that you believe will be valuable to her future. When she finds something for which she has a personal fascination, I would not be surprised if she is able to remember and integrate all kinds of apparent trivia--because its personal meaning is intense enough that she has emotional structures organizing them.
There are some nice parent-friendly suggestions for working memory development on this page:
https://www.understood.org/en/schoo...k-study-skills/8-working-memory-boostersPeg Dawson's "Smart but Scattered" is a go-to book on executive functions in general, of which working memory is one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593854455/
