What is Your Child’s Learning Style?

From the time they are young, children learn in different ways. Knowing and understanding your children’s learning styles, or the way that they process and understand information, can help you as a parent and a teacher. You can tailor the learning environment to meet their unique needs and make learning even more fun!

Identifying your child’s learning style isn’t overly complicated and there are a few things you can observe that may help you {more formal observations are also available}.

What Are the Different Learning Styles?

How do your children approach different activities? Thinking about their favorite activities can also help you as you determine their learning styles. We’re covering three types of learners in this post: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic.

While you are reading about the different learning styles below, think not only about your kids, but how you learn best. This was a great reminder for me about each of our kids and what they need {or don’t need} during our school time. Often I forget that my kids are not the same type of learners as I am – and I need to adjust what we are doing or how we work together.

Auditory Learners

Children that are auditory learners learn best through listening and hearing information. They enjoy music and rhyme/rhythm in the learning process. This child may also love listening to stories and read-alouds. Facts may be easier to remember when they are given in the format of a song or a rhyme.

You may want to consider using headphones for this child as other background noises can distract the auditory learner from concentrating. Books on tape would be a great help as well. Auditory learners may benefit from reading directions out loud, so they can ‘hear’ what they need to do.

Things to consider for auditory learners: this child may be sensitive to the inflections in your voice and be sensitive to other background sounds that are going on in the room.

Visual Learners

Children that are visual learners learn best through seeing things around them. They benefit from colorful illustrations, enjoy taking notes, creating ‘lists’ to check off, and may close their eyes to visualize something they may be trying to remember.

Quiet environments are typically best for this learner because they may be distracted by all the noises going on around them and have trouble concentrating. Visual learners can also be very detail-oriented. They do well with maps, charts, diagrams and drawings to help them learn. They may also enjoy using flash cards for learning.

Things to consider for visual learners: This child is watching your facial movements as well – those smiles and frowns are all being processed. When reading books without pictures, encourage your visual learner to create a picture for the story and imagine what is taking place. They may also enjoy drawing a picture to go along with lessons.

Kinesthetic Learners

Kinesthetic or physical learners learn best through moving, touching, and actually doing something. Instead of hearing about how something works, they may have it taken apart and be trying to figure it out. These children benefit from physically touching objects when learning, so make it hands-on.

That pencil tapping that drives you crazy, might actually be helping them concentrate on a current task. Making models to go along with what you are studying can be helpful to this learner. Manipulatives are also a HUGE help. Coloring pictures or drawing to go along with a lesson might also be helpful to this learner as they are ‘doing’ while learning.

Things to consider for kinesthetic learners: may need to move around more frequently and they may be mislabeled as not listening – but they just need to wiggle and move around when learning. They may need frequent breaks and a clean learning space {no distractions}. Let them actively participate in the lesson!!

Finding Curricula for Different Learning Styles

There is no one way or right way when it comes to learning styles. Your child may fit exclusively into one category or lean mostly into one and a bit into another.

As a teacher and mom, finding curricula that you can use with multiple children and all these varied learning styles can be tricky!! Our family has the three different learning styles represented and I definitely want to be able to use one program with multiple children. That can be hard depending on the curriculum – so I love it when companies consider all the styles.

To give you an example, All About Spelling is one component  of our curriculum that helps visual learners {the different colored letter tiles}, auditory learners {sounding out}, and kinesthetic learners {touching to spell}  – YAY!  For our family this has been wonderful because I don’t have to hunt around for another spelling curriculum to use. We can just tailor the lessons to go along with our children’s different learning styles.

For Additional Reading on Learning Styles

One homeschool speaker that I love to listen too is Carol Barnier. She has a fabulous book, The Big What Now Book of Learning Styles,  that will help any homeschool mom. It provides alternative teaching ideas for the various learning styles for children in grades K-12, as well as ideas on how to incorporate multiple methods to teach your child. This is a book that you will want to keep handy on your shelf for years to come!

What is YOUR Learning Style?

As you were reading through the descriptions, were you able to identify any of your children’s learning styles? What about yourself – what type of a learner are you?

I am primarily a visual learner, but also benefit from kinesthetic learning techniques. One of our children is an auditory learner. Another kinesthetic. Another a visual learner. Ironically {as I was writing this post}, my visual learner was watching me and asking what I was writing about as she was observing my facial expressions.

Think about this even in your discipline styles with your children {oh, this was another ‘aha’ moment for me!!}. Visual learners want eye contact {that’s me}, but my auditory learner is one that feels I am not listening to her when we are in the heat of the moment {and she doesn’t like making eye contact}.

Knowing your child’s learning style doesn’t just apply to classroom learning!

What type of learners do you have in your home? Are your kids’ learning styles very different from the way you learn? How have you best adjusted your teaching and/or discipline to help your learners?

This post is a part of the Homeschool Basics series. Be sure to read the other posts if you are just joining in. For the record, I am not an expert. I’m a homeschool mom who is sharing what she’s learned so far along the way with her own family.