Learning Styles

This is information I've had stashed away in a file folder for years. It's from a book written by Jody Capeheart "Cherishing and Challenging Children."

"As we look at the different ways in which children learn, it is easy to see why parenting can be so difficult. Each child enters the world with his own completely unique script and purpose. That is why it is impossible to state simplistic rules for parenting and expect them to work for each child."

Capeheart has listed three types of learners and characteristics of them.

Visual Learners

• They need to see something to understand it.
• They often roll their eyes up and to the right or the left as they are being talked to because they are trying to picture it in their mind.
• They like to write things down.
• They can handle a lot of visual input like charts, graphs, pictures, etc., but usually like it orderly for maximum concentration.
• They generally learn to read easily unless, of course, they have dyslexia.

Auditory Learners

• They need to hear something to learn it best
• They like lots of auditory input.
• They like to tell you things in complete detail.
• They love to talk and often have to tell you their entire day in sequence.

Kinesthetic Learner

This is probably the most ignored and least understood of the learning modalities. That is because the adult world runs on visual or auditory tracks. As adults we learned to "adjust to the the system" and therefore forget how important it is to touch. We think that it is just a part of childhood. Characteristics of kinesthetic learners are:

• They need to touch it.
• They may seem hyperactive and are often labeled as such because thy are restless and frustrated when they can't touch.
• Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D) children need kinesthetic learning and do calm down when they can touch things.
• They learn best by doing and interacting with the item.
• They need to minimize their visual and auditory input and just work alone with a 'hands-on" item.

*****************************************************

I think it's interesting how this author reports that most schools teach best to the visual tract learner and that most teachers are visual learners. This can be frustrating to a large group of children who do not learn by seeing, but by hearing and touching.

It seems to me that my 'almost five' granddaughter is a rapid learner on all tracts; hearing, seeing and touching, but maybe she'll shine in one tract in the years to come. I am enjoying watching her learn, it is the most enjoyable and exciting part, I think, in being a grandmother. Don't you agree?