Discovering Your Child’s Learning Style

By Kendra Ericson

    If you’re like most parents, you’ve probably heard that learning styles exist, and that one of the primary styles (visual, auditory, and physical/kinesthetic) is likely dominant in your child. But it may seem difficult to determine what style is the most prominent, as many children possess a mixture of all three. In addition, even when armed with a clear understanding of what style your child favors, it’s not always easy to determine what to do with that information. So your child is a physical learner, what then?

    There are several ways to tailor the way you work with your child based on his or her learning preference. However, the first step in the process of helping your child become a successful learner is to not only uncover your child’s learning style, but your own as well. Imagine the way you preferred to study in high school or college. Did you prefer to study with music playing in the background or in complete silence? Did you find it easy to follow verbal instruction, or did you need to write everything down to successfully complete a task? Examining the way you learn best will help you determine the similarities and differences between the way you and your child take in, process, and relate information. For example, if you take verbal instruction with ease but have a child who is a visual learner, translating your explanation of a topic into a picture, chart, or other visual tool will increase your child’s ability to absorb and fully understand the information.

    So how do you uncover these learning secrets? From taking a test at a local learning center to observing the traits displayed in your child’s daily activities, there are diverse and plentiful resources available to help you determine the learning styles that work best for you and your child. Try utilizing the lists below to determine which type of learner best describes you and your child.

Visual Learners:
• May enjoy drawing or art
• Are good at reading maps or other visuals
• May have a vivid imagination

Auditory Learners:
• Often enjoy telling stories or playing word games
• May want to make noise if the room is too quiet
• May hum or easily access information through music (lyrics)

Physical Learners:
• Like to take things apart and put them back together
• Often need to move around
• Show a need to handle things to understand them

    Since most people learn in more than one way, you will probably witness traits from multiple styles in your child and yourself, but with one style emphasized a little (or a lot) more than the others.

    Armed with this knowledge, you will be able to assist in your child’s learning process in a way that best reflects his or her learning preference. If your child leans towards the visual, try making flash cards, charts, or utilizing written notes to support learning. If your child is more auditory, reading aloud, utilizing a tape recorder, or talking through problems will help with retention. If he or she is a physical learner, try having your child take notes, build models, or utilize manipulatives to work through problems (clay or Play-Doh are great tools!).

    While tailoring information to your child’s primary style will help more learning take place in a shorter period of time, studies have shown that students learn best when exposed to all three modes of learning. As David Ware, co-founder of N-GENioUS Learning Center, notes, “Ideally, students should be exposed to information visually, verbally, and physically to maximize learning, but understanding a student’s learning style is a great tool --- it helps parents find innovative ways to explain material to their kids that once seemed incomprehensible.”

    Understanding your child’s learning preference will help you set the foundation for your child’s future academic success because the work you do with your kids at home translates into all areas of their lives. As Shelly Schoenberger, Academy Director of FasTracKids in Irvine, comments “The home is your child’s first school, and parents are their first teacher(s). Since the development of your child’s gifts is highly dependent on early exposure and stimulation, your commitment to healthy “nurturing” during the infant, toddler, and pre-school years will create gifts and talents that last a lifetime.” In addition, becoming aware of the way your child learns will not only assist you in helping your child at home, but will allow you to teach your child ways to deal with learning situations that aren’t geared to his or her learning style.

    Because there are no “right” and “wrong” ways to learn, exploring this process with your kids can be a new and effective way to encourage them to succeed. Learning can be serious fun, so try making a game of it. Whether you employ your excellent artistic ability to assist your visual learner (I often rely on my fantastic stick figures), or you utilize your amazing rhyming skills to rap out an auditory explanation, your work will be rewarded with greater understanding and retention. Plus, you’ll give your kids something to laugh about when they remember that you were once their personal Snoop Dogg or Picasso. Even if they simply remember the time you spent enduring their incessant pencil tapping because it helped them concentrate, in the long run, it will have been more than worth the effort.