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Once, while watching my sister-in-law vacuum, then dust, I asked her why she did it that way. In my mind, it seemed backwards. I have always dusted first, and then vacuumed. She explained to me that her vacuum cleaner left a fine layer of dust on all of her surfaces. She needed a new vacuum cleaner, but couldn’t afford one. That made sense. But, what if I insisted that the only right way to vacuum is to do it my way?
Learning is often handled in this way. We’ve always had a teacher up in front of the class with chalk in hand. She explains to us how to do the problem and we listen. There are many ways to learn, just like there are many ways of cleaning house. Children’s learning styles are no different from adults and they are visible (to those that want to see it) by school age and many times younger. Three basic learning styles are Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic or sometimes called Tactile. See if you can find your style or your child’s style in the following descriptions.
Visual
These folks have to see it to believe it. They say, “Let me see it, let me see it.” They like to look at pictures of things. “What did it look like?” they will ask. They like to read the words in books themselves and they turn these words into pictures. When read to they will make up the necessary pictures and will have trouble remembering information that they can’t picture. Often they get distracted by other activities that are going on in the room. “Most gifted and virtually all children with ADD share the same learning style. Simply put they are all highly visual, nonsequential processors who learn by remembering how things look…” according to Jeffrey Freed, M.A.T., the author of the book, Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World.
Auditory
These people can listen to a ball game on the radio and understand every bit of it. They “hear what you are saying.” They like you to read to them or to listen to books on tape. Even when they read, they will sometimes read the words aloud, not even realizing it. They learn best when they are verbally quizzed or if they say the answers in rhyme. There was a man who liked his wife to read the instructions to him while he put things together.
Kinesthetic
Touching, doing, moving. That’s the kinesthetic person. My son often baffles people. He will say “Let me see it,” and hold out his hands. He needs to hold it in his hands to connect. (He has a mixed learning style). Learning is best done while in movement or doing the project. These children can drive a teacher up the wall if she doesn’t understand learning styles. One child that I know was told to sit down numerous times. His exasperated teacher said, “Glue your bottom to the seat.” He did, with Elmer’s white glue. These children need to bounce a ball, stand on one foot, or develop hand motions while memorizing a verse. Doing a skit with this group is fun.
Bringing it together
So how do we include all of these in our teaching? Mix it up. Use a variety of quiet and active activities. Use pictures, videotapes, and flashcards for visuals. Let the visual learners look at the pictures or memorize with different colored papers. Remember that they will see the words as pictures, so ask them what the person looks like in the story. The auditory learners will learn best by distinctive sounds, singing something in a song, or making a rap or a rhyme. Kinesthetic learners like to move so let them do hand motions, dance or walk. If they are allowed to move around while learning something new, they will remember more. Small children like to do stretches while they say a ‘memory piece’. A hands-on activity satisfies most kids. We all can learn through experience. How did we learn to drive a car or cook a meal? You may have read a cookbook but the real learning is in doing it. The only way to learn to drive is to get in the car and drive.
More?
These are just some of the basics. There are more ways of learning. Have you heard of linear or sequential learners? They want to do things in order. Their non-sequential counterparts will bring the puzzle out and dump it. They might work on the border, but are just as likely to start with a picture in the middle with no particular order. To read more, check out these books:
· Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World, by Jeffrey Freed, M.A.T.
· The Way They Learn, by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias
· 7 Kinds of Smart, by Thomas Armstrong
· It’s All in Your Mind: A Student’s Guide to Learning, by Kathleen Butler
There is no one correct way to learn and no one uses just one learning style. Like all things though, we all have an opinion about the “right” way of driving, even me.
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