Know Your Child's Learning Style
Help Your Child Learn by Understanding How He Learns
Mar 18, 2009 Thaddeus Lawrence
If your child insists on listening to music while studying or cannot sit quietly to do his assignments or has heaps of doodles in his notes, take heart. Although appearing as if he is not taking his work seriously, he is in fact revealing what his learning styles are.
The Three Basic Learning Styles
The three basic learning styles are visual, auditory and kinesthetic. People learn and take in information through what they see, hear or do. There is no right or wrong style and while most people use a combination of styles, they exhibit a preference for one of the approaches.
Visual Learners
People with a strong visual style love colours and they say things like “I see what you mean”, “Can you picture what I am saying?” or “This looks good to me”. They process information by reading, watching a demonstration or looking at illustrations.
Visual students like to organise things and observe others around them, and learn best by seeing what is written on the board in class. They love to write, draw and look at pictures and quickly grow impatient at listening to a lecture for a long period of time.
Learning strategies for visual learners include:
- Writing things down while the teacher is explaining
- Colour-coding, highlighting and underlining information
- Using memory strategies involving visual chains or links
- Associating theoretical concepts with a visual scenario or story
- Drawing illustrations, pictures or diagrams
- Creating images in the mind
Auditory Learners
People in this category can be musically inclined and they say things like “This rings a bell”, “I hear what you are saying” or “This sounds like a good idea”. They best absorb information the way most people memorised the alphabet – singing a rhyme.
Auditory learners have superior listening skills and learn better by listening to lessons and explanations rather than reading or writing them. They love to take part in discussions and reciting information aloud and may have background music while studying.
Learning strategies for auditory learners include:
- Talking things out to gain a better understanding about what they’re learning
- Making up a song or rhyme on the subject material
- Keeping distracting noises to a minimum
- Joining a study group or buddy
- Recording information and listening to the audio files
- Stating problems and reasoning solutions out loud
Kinesthetic Learners
Kinesthetic learners tend to be very tactile and they say things like “I need to get a grip on all this information”, “Do you catch my drift?” or “I feel good about the upcoming exams”.
Students in this category learn experientially and prefer to be constantly on the move. They may have trouble sitting still while studying and are better able to understand information by making physical contact with the things they are learning or through hands-on exercises. Their memory is directly linked to bodily interaction.
Learning strategies for kinesthetic learners include:
- Memorising by taking notes and writing things down multiple times
- Squeezing a stress ball or playing with a toy while studying
- Moving around or taking frequent breaks
- Doing hands-on activities, such as experiments or building models
- Pacing and walking while studying
- Using gestures when explaining
Your child most likely uses a combination of all three learning approaches. You can support your child’s development and teach him how to learn by knowing his most preferred method and adapting resources and activities to accommodate his personal style.
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