How do you know if your child is an auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learner?

[tdeveson]

I see people describing their children as one or the other. I myself describe my son as a visual learner because he enjoys colorful pages and videos for learning, and he refuses to work on cramped black and white pages. I literally have to retype most of the exercises on JAG because the pages are so cramped. I'm assuming he's a visual learner. On the other hand, he loves listening to books on his iPod. Does that make him an auditory learner? Last, he's a wiggly boy, as many little boys tend to be. If he's moving around, handling things, he can often concentrate a bit better (although sometimes it just takes his attention away).

 

So how do you decide which best describes your child? And then what do you do about it? I've read a book or two on this, but it seems terribly subjective. I'd love to learn more about this from the experienced mommas on this forum. :bigear:

[Ellie]

Good luck with that. Neither my dc nor I ever fit the descriptions of any of the learning-style models. I know *now* all these years later that we are pretty visual, but back then, I just could not figure it out. Truth is that it turned out not to be an issue, anyway.

[OnTheBrink]

I went to a workshop by Inge Cannon at a hs conference years ago. She had some great info on how to determine this, AND, how to teach to the main learning gateway, as well as the minor ones. I've since lost the notes (of course!) but iirc, boys tended to be more kinesthetic and girls more auditory. That's a huge generalization, though. I do remember her saying to teach new material to the main learning gateway, and do review in the minor gateways. Meaning, if your child is visual, all new material is taught visually, with review of that material audibly and kinesthetically.