Teaching According to Learning Styles vs. Strengthening Weak Modalities

[JenniferB]

In all my reading about homeschooling and teaching, I've read a ton of information on how to teach to a child's particular learning style. Early on in my homeschooling adventure/learning experience I honed in on my child's learning style, which is auditory/kinesthetic, and I taught her within her strength. For example I used math songs, geography songs, Bible verse songs, sandpaper letters, movable alphabet, math blocks, jumping up and down or skipping to memorize things, etc. etc. She is now in 4th grade, and showing significant deficiency in the visual areas. Now I'm questioning if I should teach my other kids according to their learning styles, or if I should teach in a more well rounded approach, and actually focus more on their weaknesses than their strengths. #3 below is where I'm leaning to try next. What do you think? Where have you been, and where are you now? Do you have a success story of helping a child to overcome weakness to share? I would love to hear success stories of overcoming visual weaknesses, and what you used. I need some ideas to help my daughter, and am curious to hear where others are at on this popular homeschooling subject: Learning Styles.

[Rosy]

I think #2? I teach the way I teach with all of them, but I try to take their strengths and weaknesses into consideration and allow more time & adjust my expectations when we're working in a weak area.

[Parrothead]

I go by my experience as a child. I was never more frustrated than being told how to do something without being able to get my hands dirty with it. It has been that way all my life.

 

So for me teaching the way dd learns is of utmost importance. I found the hard way the first two years that teaching her another way is futile. She doesn't keep the info, and it has to be retaught.

[abbeyej]

I definitely think there's an excessive emphasis on learning styles. That doesn't mean they're totally useless, but I absolutely think it can be over done. I tend to teach fairly traditionally, and bring in a lot of different modes of learning when I can. I try to make sure that my kids learn *both* through things that delight them and speak to them, and that they have exposure to areas that come less naturally to them. But generally speaking, I guess I stick to fairly traditional methods...

 

In your case, I wouldn't recommend doing a 180 or anything... But you can shore up your daughters weaker visual skills without dropping learning songs and CDs and things like that.

 

Have you had her go in for a "Developmental Vision exam" with a Developmental Optometrist? It may be that her eyes -- while able to *see* quite well -- aren't working together as completely and efficiently as they need to. That might be a first step for me.

 

Also take a look at the "Visual-Perceptual Skill Building" workbooks from Critical Thinking Press. These are simple and straightforward, and may give you an idea of which particular areas are toughest for her.

 

You might look at some art-based games and instruction that force her to look a little more closely. The "Child-Sized Masterpieces" program is an art exposure / appreciation program that uses postcard sized reproductions to teach children about art. But while doing it, the kids are forced to look closely and analyze detail as they match identical paintings, or pick similar pieces out of a larger group, etc. The "Art Fraud Detective" (and similar books) also have kids look closely at great art to find slight differences as they identify forgeries... "Drawing With Children" is a book about using the Monart method to teach children to draw, and it's also good about working with children to slow down and really *see*...

 

But all of these things are "extras". It doesn't mean you can't still use some of the things you already know she loves and that work for her as you teach... Why not use a CD of Bible verses set to music to help her memorize? But also ask her to write out the verse as well. She's at an age where most kids move away from math blocks toward more abstract work, but teach her to draw the blocks if she needs to -- or ask her to imagine them in front of her as she works through a problem. (For some reason, both of my kids are better at figuring math when it involves imaginary plates of cookies, closed bakery boxes ["X"], or cakes[fractions], than they are with almost any other manipulatives, real or imagined!) lol...

 

There's definitely a balance to be reached.

[Carol in Cal.]

I think that what I do can best be described as teach to the child's strengths for initial acquisition of material, but always try to involve other modalities when it's easy to do so, and once she has mastered the basics of the material I push on her to use it in other ways. I really think that learning things in multiple ways can make them stick better.

 

So, for instance, DD has always been a pretty audio-style learner. But I would have her do some jumping jacks or run around the house or do some midline crossing stuff when we were going to cover something new and hard, or when she started to have trouble with something that she had just learned, and I think that this helped even though she is not primarily a kinesthetic learner.

 

But I don't think that it would serve her well to only learn in one way, so, for instance, although she listens to SOTW CD's over and over and knows them really well because of it, she still has to read some history material, write about it, and illustrate it. We still discuss it as well. We still visit living history sites and memorials.

 

And, as she has gotten older, she is better and better at learning in many ways, which I think will serve her much better in school down the road. I also insist that she learns things that she is not all that interested in, and report on them. I have started to add more testing and 'fill in the blanks' so that she can get used to looking for what someone else thinks is important in a history, literature, or science book--in addition to her summaries and outlines and other work where she picks her own views of what is important.

 

My big concern for the future is that she really can't learn at all in a noisy environment, and she gets completely distracted by other children. So when I take her to science classes, she doesn't get very much out of them at all. I really don't know what to do about this.

[Alana in Canada]

So, if I use playdough to teach grammer to a ten year old, what learning modality is that?

 

:driving:

 

We'll see if he remembers tomorrow!

[Storm Bay]

I combine one and three.

[Plaid Dad]

I try to teach to the natural modality/modalities of the subject, not the student. You can read more from the author I've linked to, and watch some very informative short videos, at his site.

[PariSarah]

I don't even know what their learning styles are.

 

I teach in a way that's comfortable for me. If they don't get it, I try something different. They usually get it sooner or later.

 

I use a standard scope and sequence to judge whether they're getting something. I haven't found it useful to assign learning styles to particular elements of the standard scope and sequence. We make sure everything's covered before we move on.

 

I'm sorry if I'm not being much of a help--I just have a very straightforward approach. 4th grade math involves such-and-such-a skills, and we hit them all before we move on to 5th grade math. If a skill comes easy, we move quickly to the next one. If it doesn't, we work on it. We don't spend much time on why this set of skills is easy and that set isn't. We've gotta learn them all, so we just get on with the business of doing it.

[katalaska]

I am aware of my children's learning styles, primarily because the oldest is very much like me (and I know what MY style is!) and the younger two have learning disabilities/differences. Also, I taught special education for six years before having kids so I sort of naturally assess strengths and weaknesses without even having to think about it much.

 

That said, I tend to teach in a similar fashion to the way that *I* learn best. That sounds sort of selfish, but it is comfortable for me.

 

One of my kids has auditory processing problems and a language disorder; so I know that information presented orally is going to be hard for her. So I make adjustments...repetition is required for her, so I invested in the audio CDs for some of our subjects. Memory work is hard for her, so we do less of it but do it more often and for a longer duration (same material reviewed for months instead of weeks).

 

One of my kids has trouble with visual-motor tasks, motor planning, and general strength...he also has an intention tremor. These things impact his ability to do written work but he does brilliantly orally. So I've backed off on the handwriting requirements for him while still requiring him to practice handwriting and to do a fair amount.

 

I don't necessarily teach to their strengths by making it "fun" but I present the information in a more traditional way and then make modifications based on what I know about their strengths and weaknesses.

 

We also spend time trying to remediate weaknesses (hence my post about which school subjects would you be willing to drop due to therapies...we have two kids in speech therapy, two kids in occupational therapy, and one [possibly two; we'll know soon] in physical therapy. We also did in-home vision therapy as well as in-home brain integration therapy for a time, which ate up some of our school hours).

[Twinmom]

I'm with Abbey on this one. I think your DD could benefit from a developmental vision exam with an optometrist who specializes in vision therapy. See www.covd.org to find one in your area and to learn more about visual processing disorders. They are so misunderstood and underrecognized, but SO easy to fix!

 

Your situation sounds so much like mine that it's giving me deja vu! I tried so hard to teach to what I thought was DD's learning style (auditory/kinesthetic) only to have her fall further and further behind in visual skills, both related to reading and to math. Someone tested her IQ without my consent (long story for another day!) and placed her at an 89 though I know darn well she's much smarter. She began to fall further behind in school. I gave her visual supports to help her keep up, but she was still very poor in reading. Her reading skills were there, but on most days she'd read well for a couple of minutes then begin to jumble up the words. She'd flip letters, lose track on a line of text, etc. She was beyond frustrated and so was I.

 

Some folks on the special needs board kindly explained visual processing disorders (vs. dyslexia, which I'd begun to suspect!) and sent me on my way to an eval. It was the best thing I've ever done for DD! We discovered that she has a visual processing/visual motor disorder which was frustrating all efforts to do her school work. She's done vision therapy all summer, working at breakneck speed to finish in 3 months what is normally done in 9. She is now reading for pleasure! She's reading at grade level, sometimes above grade level. She's literally gained 2 full grade levels in reading ability in just 3 months!

 

It has literally been a miracle cure for her. She is jumping into her schoolwork with enthusiasm, has made great gains in self confidence and her true intelligence is showing through. I'd always known she was smart, but now she can prove it! ;) And, low and behold...she's not the kinesthetic learner I thought she was! That was just the only way she could learn at the time, so she took full advantage of it.

 

Anyway, HTH. PM me if you think this applies to your situation and I'll answer any questions you have.

 

:grouphug:

[Storm Bay]

So, if I use playdough to teach grammer to a ten year old, what learning modality is that?

 

:driving:

 

We'll see if he remembers tomorrow!

 

Kinesthetic? That is, if he's using the play dough himself. When I teach piano, I modify according to the needs of the student all the time--it was the first and most important point drilled into me by one of my piano teachers, who taught piano pedagogy at a Canadian university. However, when I teach piano, just like when I homeschool, I do my best to help them learn everything they need to in order to be able to be a well rounded player. Talent/natural ability plays heavily into music (sorry, but not just everyone can be a Glenn Gould or an Ashkenazi, or a Yoko Ono, or even a proficient orchestral player or great at jazz, popular music, etc.) With homeschooling, I work for a well rounded education and certain standards to be met, but I also understand that not all my kids are going to learn the same way...