When you establish what your child’s preferred learning style is, you’ll be able to help them enjoy learning more, find better ways to encourage them with their studies and give them suitable activities to enhance their learning.
Here are the four predominant learning styles, along with an overview of how to spot them. There’s also a brief description of what you can do to help your child if they naturally lean towards that particular learning style.
Kinaesthetic learners
Kinaesthetic learners love physical activity, regardless of whether it’s athletics, sports or dance. If your child is a kinaesthetic kind of learner, they were probably an early developer when it came to crawling and walking and will naturally use hand gestures a lot when talking. They’ll also have good balance and coordination and prefer hands-on activities, such as drawing, play-acting and anything active. Kinaesthetic learners also tend to fidget a lot and most enjoy learning when they’re able to try things out themselves.
Ways to help kinaesthetic learners with their studies
If you want to adjust learning styles to suit kinaesthetic learners, give them the ability to move around whilst studying and don’t insist on them staying sat down at a desk every session. They’ll also find it useful to either chew gum or fiddle with something whilst they’re studying, as it helps them to focus. Opt for lots of hands-on learning activities and the chance to experience things themselves.
Auditory learners
Auditory learners are naturally drawn to sound and will enjoy music, singing and learning musical instruments. They will often be the child who notices unusual sounds and sings whilst playing and is often labelled as quite talkative. Auditory learners think in words but verbalise concepts. They’re good listeners, like reading aloud and generally enjoy words. They enjoy playing word games and trivia too and are great at spelling and times tables etc.
Ways to help auditory children with learning
Encourage them to read aloud and listen to books on audio. As auditory children learn phonetically, they will benefit from recording sessions for later playback.
Visual learners
A visual learner is observant and has a good sense of direction, often remembering places they’ve been and faces of the people they’ve met. They love books, photos, reading, and working from a screen. Visual learners have a vivid imagination, so have a tendency to love art and visualising things and they also like learning how things work. As they have a vivid imagination this can mean they’re often seen as a bit of daydreamer, but it’s how they process information.
Ways to help visual learners
If your child prefers a visual learning style, they need to write things down, so they can see it in print. This means you can help them with their studies by using cue cards and images, as well as encouraging them to visualise how things play out etc. They also will benefit from board games and watching films based on the books they’re studying and will enjoy creative writing.
Logical learners
The logic learner will constantly ask questions and wonder about how things work, so they often like to build things. They find mental arithmetic easy, think conceptually and like puzzles and patterns. Logic learners also like routine and structure, strategies and experiments. Creativity is one area where the logical learner will often struggle and often, they are seen as the child who asks too many questions and wants to reason over things.
Ways to help logical learners
If you want to encourage the logical learner to study, encourage them to experiment and record their results. They prefer to learn on the computer and love playing computer learning games. Logical learners also like having non-fiction books to read and being set problems to solve. They have a natural learning style that dictates they’re great at compartmentalising information and are good at analysing their results.
If you’re not sure what learning style your child is, take a little time to notice the specific skills they may struggle with. This can often help you pinpoint their natural strengths and preferences. But no matter what style of learner your child is, it’s essential you find out, so you can tailor their studies to support their strengths. This will help you to raise the level of enjoyment they have around the subjects they are studying and will help make learning more fun and engaging for them.
