"Learning styles.... what the heck are those and how can I tell what my kids' are??? "
Well, I may have some answers.
Some notes I took, a long time ago when I went through a learning style seminar for my teacher training, said "A learning style is the way a person sees or understands BEST what they are being taught."
There are several different ways to receive information and remember and keep it stored. Some are more useful than others for different people. Not every kid can learn the same way best. Buuuuuut... WE tend to try and teach our kids with our learning style! Hmm. Maybe that's why their not seeming to pick it up as quickly as we think they should.
There are 3 main ways of "picking stuff up": Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic.
We who have attended "real" school are very familiar with the first 2. Mostly auditory. Professors really like the sound of their own voice, don't they? It has become much more popular to use visual aids lately as a lot of people figured out that they are visual learners. But, have you ever had a teacher make you get up and do something weird to demonstrate a point? Did that stick out to you just a bit, if they did? Let me ask you something else. Did you just love sitting in a desk non-stop for the 1 1/2 hours for each lesson? Or did your butt fall asleep? Yeah, mine did, too.
Here are some interesting (to me, hopefully to you, too) statistics on kids out there:
Out of TEN students:
- Two are auditory (mostly girls)
- Four are visual
- FOUR learn by moving and touching (mostly boys).
Back in the good old days of teaching, (when most of those college professors were attending elementary school) teachers focused on lecture-style teaching. It just became how you did it.
Now stop and think about a class you took this way. You remember what you learned?
How many senses did God give us? One or two? Vision and hearing? Wait, more? More than those basic 2?
He gave us touch and taste and smell, too?
Can we maybe learn with those senses?
Think back to some of your memories as a kid. Can you smell anything? A major part of our strong memories have a smell incorporated somehow. I'm not saying teach by smellovision... not sure exactly how you would do that, but I am saying kids learn
in lots of unconventional ways and I want to think outside the classroom-shaped lecture box. Take "classroom" outside on a sunny day.
Take it into the kitchen. Use the sense of touch and movement to teach. Make your son stand on his head as he says multiplication tables or jog in place while memorizing verses.
Have your daughter sing the parts of speech. Was your favorite class a hands-on learning one? Mine, too.
Now, the how-to-tell-what-kind-your-kids'-learning-style-is part:
Pay attention to them and look for clues. Ask them questions that would help you know. Here are some clues:
If your child seems to look at everything in the room and get distracted and point out some sight they just saw or ask "hey, what's that?" in the middle of your sentence, they might be visual learners. Show them some fun visual aids or pictures and ask them
about what they remember when you take it away.
If your child quotes song lyrics or movie lines from memory, if they talk a lot and interrupt to ask clarifying questions, they might be auditory learners. Do repetition and use music to teach them, see if they remember well.
If your child can't seem to stand still or sit straight in their chairs, if they like to act out a story they're telling you about what
happened to them and you can totally picture it from their reenactment through pantomime, they are most likely kinesthetic.
OR, they're me. :)
Some kids, yourself as well, may have more than one style of learning and do well with both. Cool. I am highly audiokinesthetatory...
So you have a wide range of options. Get creative. Part of the reason I didn't put my oldest into school in Kindergarten was the simple fact I knew he would hate sitting still for as long as he would have had to. I was afraid that his hatred of that would equal
a hatred of school and thereby hatred of learning. I knew I could help him learn in a more fun way with his learning style and hopefully get him to love school. Here's still hoping. But at least he doesn't have to sit and write for very long.
Well, I hope that helped answer some questions.
See YA!
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