Learning Styles, Learning Differences

At school

• Choose a school whose principal and staff show they know how learning styles and preferences affect a child’s behavior, interest and retention at school.
• Ask how they will meet the needs of each group.
• Ask how they help teachers differentiate their classroom instruction.

Although in most schools teachers cannot focus on each method at every teaching opportunity, they can vary their approach to make sure that everyone gets a chance to learn in his or her best style at least part of the day.

At home

• Helping the Auditory Learner
  
  Auditory learners enjoy having all the facts, hearing details, and having facts vocalized. They may prefer memorizing math facts in their head, putting them to music or figuring out the answers by talking them over with you.

• Helping the Visual Learner
  
  Visual learners are often the “why?” people. They want to see the information, read about it, study the pictures and graphs. They will prefer to work out their math problems on paper. They are often better at understanding word problems.

• Helping the Kinesthetic Learner
  
  If kinesthetic learners aren’t able to use their bodies somehow in the learning process, they’re going to get frustrated. They like to know how things work. If you can involve movement as they listen to and see the information, they’ll have a better chance of understanding and remembering what they learn. When learning letter sounds, try creating a hopscotch grid outdoors, using letters instead of numbers. As they land on each letter, have them shout the sound the letter makes. When practicing math, use counters (such as beans, toothpicks, tiddlywinks or pennies) that they can move around as you solve a number problem.