cathmom Posted October 24, 2008 Share Posted October 24, 2008 I meant to post this today - thanks for reminding me! When you say someone has a "visual" learning style, does that refer to pictures only? Because I like/need to look at things (please don't read out loud to me!), and I visualize words in my mind. But then I was reading something that refers to a visual learning style as being NOT word-related, ie, learning/seeing in pictures. Likely it's a matter of semantics but I am confused. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie Laurie Posted October 24, 2008 Share Posted October 24, 2008 Learning styles confuse me too.:001_huh: I don't understand when I read things like that either, which is why I don't even know what my dc's learning styles are for sure. I know that's not much help... I'd like to hear clarification about this also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirty ethel rackham Posted October 24, 2008 Share Posted October 24, 2008 I don't think it refers to pictures only. Some people are picture-visual and some people are word-visual. It has to do with what inputs work for you in processing information. Do you process information best when it is received visually (read something or look at a diagram) or auditorily (hearing it spoken or acted out) or kinesthetically (doing something that teaches the concept or while reading or listening)? I am of the opinion that the best learners are those who may have a strength in one area, but can function well with the other areas. In my children, I try to teach to the strength, but remediate the weakness. (I have a strongly visual learner that was very weak in auditory learning due to SPD.) Here is pretty good link to help explain it. It also talks about mulitple intelligences, which dovetails nicely with learning styles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6packofun Posted October 24, 2008 Share Posted October 24, 2008 For me, it also refers to watching a demonstration and seeing the steps to a process. I can catalog information in my head, so to speak, more easily after seeing it displayed or demonstrated for me, if that makes any sense! lol I Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ria Posted October 24, 2008 Share Posted October 24, 2008 I'm a visual learner, and it has nothing to do with pictures. I need to read what I'm studying. Just listening to a lecture will do nothing for me, but if I can read text I'm good. Ria Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joannqn Posted October 24, 2008 Share Posted October 24, 2008 I am a visual learner. I need to see the words, not hear them. I learn how to do most things by reading directions, looking/studying what I'm trying to do, and trying it. If it doesn't work, I study it closely some moe and try it a different way. I can also learn by being shown how to do it by someone else. I also like diagrams. If I'm trying to explain something to someone, I'll almost always grab a paper and pencil and draw it out. My son is also a visual learner. He has a hard time learning by hearing something. For history and science, I read our text and library books out loud to both my kids. However, I bought an extra text book for my son to follow along in because he retains almost nothing from just listening. For other books where I don't have an extra book, he sits next to me so he can look at it over my shoulder. My daughter is auditory. She learns by hearing. She prefers to have things read to her...which is why I read history and science out loud to my kids. Sometimes I'll read her language arts stuff to her too. She loves to read but if she can get me to read it for her, she'd rather do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keptwoman Posted October 24, 2008 Share Posted October 24, 2008 JoAnn, I like the way you have balanced both kids needs. What a good idea to get your visual learner a book to read along with. This is the main reason I have given up reading aloud, C retains nothing. But I might need to start again for Miss M. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vida Winter Posted October 25, 2008 Share Posted October 25, 2008 My middle daughter is a visual learner. We "lapbook" just about everything we do (all subjects - lapbooks are *not* fancy, just homemade ones) and she retains it all. That's how I deal with it anyway. I am more of an auditory learner myself. ~Dana Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAR120C Posted October 25, 2008 Share Posted October 25, 2008 But then I was reading something that refers to a visual learning style as being NOT word-related, ie, learning/seeing in pictures. Likely it's a matter of semantics but I am confused. (sorry this got epic!!) I said on another post that I'm extremely visual-spatial, which for me means that the only way anything makes sense is after it's translated into diagrams in my brain. If someone gives me directions in words, I have to either draw a picture on paper or at the very least picture the map in my head. If it's a math concept, I need to know "where" everything goes. I'm great for graphing, geometry, trig (except memorizing all but the most basic identities.. but I can re-derive them starting with graphs and diagrams...) I can't memorize terms, and looking at a big page of words doesn't help a bit (until I've drawn my own diagrams) But I'll go on for hours working out the math behind my kid's Spirograph (hypotrochoids!! wheeee!!) What I can't seem to do is explain things without a pen in my hand, or in a sequential, linear manner. And I'm terrible at memorizing words... even easy ones. I was talking about calculus earlier this week, and couldn't find the word "derivative"... I was stuck on "that thing that starts with a d... you know... slope of the tangent thingy" guhhhhhhh.... I can do the math, I can picture it all in my head, I can draw it.... but putting it in words? I end up sounding like a ditz. I got through the vocabulary sections of all the various standardized tests by grouping words by broad themes and actually writing them on a large sheet of paper so I could remember where they were on the page (I remember that upper left was variations on evil/ greed, lower left was something more sympathetic, upper right was something in the "heroic" line... etc.) I still couldn't tell you what they all meant, but I could tell you where they were and remember what the general theme was, which was enough to at least narrow down the choices for a multiple choice test, and frequently enough to choose the right answer. It's the same reason I was always good at "memory" or "concentration" games, because I always knew where I'd seen something. I'm also pretty good at a game called Set. I can't explain what it is I see that anyone else doesn't, but I just "see" the sets. I don't have to think through them. Symmetry, transformations/ rotations/ translations of figures, scaling, all of those geometric problems seemed like common sense to me, but my sister (very mathy but not strongly spatial at all) just couldn't get it. The Singapore math rod diagrams were absolutely perfect for me to teach, because that's what math looks like in my head already. I can knit without a pattern, just increasing where it needs to get bigger and decreasing where it needs to get smaller. It's like the joke about how to carve an elephant out of stone... you just take off all the parts that don't look like an elephant.... LOL If I'm knitting a sweater, the sweater is already in my head, and I'm just putting it together. On the negative side, my inability to remember words means if I can't translate something into a diagram, I probably won't remember it at all. I have to take notes, usually with sketches (or spatial arrangements of significant words, with circles and arrows and whatnot) or it's just going out the other ear. Lots of stuff goes out the other ear. <<blush>> DS can understand spatial explanations of things, but left to his own devices he doesn't usually go that way. He's been memorizing countries on maps for geography this year, and while I would absolutely be going by general area and shape, he recites them on a path around the continent. For him, Africa will always start with Morocco, proceed clockwise, and end with Western Sahara. And because it's working for him, I bite my tongue. He'll probably have some "artifacts" of my style... especially in math. He lays out polynomial multiplication and factoring problems my way (in a diagram) and apparently has no trouble with it. I tutor another kid in geometry, and he's definitely more of a memorizer than I am... he just wants to know what the formula is. I don't know what the formula is, but I can tell you how to get it. Even something simple like the formula for a circle.... I go all the way back to the Pythagorean theorem, though the distance formula (which is just an application of the Pythagorean theorem...) and then to the definition of a circle, and then translate it to wherever the center is meant to be. And the difference between me and this kid is that after all that, he'll memorize the formula and be on his way. No lack of understanding, but he can go straight to the formula. I'll be re-deriving it each time, for the rest of my life. But I'm really fast at re-deriving it. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sputterduck Posted October 25, 2008 Share Posted October 25, 2008 As I understood it, when you read something it goes through your auditory processing area, which is why it often not a good way for visual people to learn. Reading doesn't do much for me. I truly need to *see* it, not words written about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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