Do you haves tip and/or book recommendations on teaching a visual learner?

[4kids4me]

I just realized that ds9 is a visual learner (I always thought he was predominately kinesthetic). I should have realized this. He HATES noise when he's trying to do his school work, and when I give him verbal instructions he immediately forgets. Why didn't I see this?

 

How can I teach him to learn? He HATES school. It's just drudgery for him. What can I do to engage him according to his learning style?

 

Also I want to mention that he's been a reluctant reader, but has recently taken off with Tintin books. I mention this because he's TERRIBLE at doing narrations. Up until this point, though (because he's not been a strong reader), he's always listened to stories. How can I help him learn to love history and WRITING about it as well? kwim?

Edited January 10, 2009 by 4kids4me

[RoughCollie]

http://www.cuyamaca.edu/eops/dsps/resourcesvis.asp

 

http://homeworktips.about.com/od/homeworkhelp/a/learningstyle.htm

 

http://www.studygs.net/visual.htm

[4kids4me]

Thanks for the links.

[unsinkable]

there is also:

 

http://visualspatial.org/

[4kids4me]

Thanks!

 

Anyone else have tips?

[AprilTN]

We use Story of the World, and while I read the story, my children act out the story with playmobil. They can retain so much more when we do that.

 

They are 4th and 1st grades.

[myfunnybunch]

My dd is a visual learner. When she was homeschooled, she did a lot of drawing.

 

For a 9 y.o struggling with narration, I might try letting him draw what's he's heard, cartoon-style so that it doesn't take forever, then use the cartoons during an oral narration. Instead of having to make the leap from listening to retelling, he goes from listening-seeing-retelling.

 

Cat

[dirty ethel rackham]

I just realized that ds9 is a visual learner (I always thought he was predominately kinesthetic). I should have realized this. He HATES noise when he's trying to do his school work, and when I give him verbal instructions he immediately forgets. Why didn't I see this?

 

How can I teach him to learn? He HATES school. It's just drudgery for him. What can I do to engage him according to his learning style?

 

Also I want to mention that he's been a reluctant reader, but has recently taken off with Tintin books. I mention this because he's TERRIBLE at doing narrations. Up until this point, though (because he's not been a strong reader), he's always listened to stories. How can I help him learn to love history and WRITING about it as well? kwim?

I applaud you for looking for ways to help your son learn. One thing that jumps out at me is that, from your description, he seems to have a lot of the classic signs of auditory processing difficulties. Forgeting verbal instructions, noise aversion, narration difficulties all point to auditory difficulties. My son is very similar.

 

While it is a good idea to teach to the strength, you would be doing your child a big favor if you also work to remediate the weakness. Both reading and writing activities do emply auditory as well as visual function. With my local school, they were not at all interested in working on his auditory issues, only the language deficiencies that resulted from them. We had to seek therapy ourselves and ended up with using a neurodevelopmental approach. We had great success with NACD. We saw a tremendous improvement in all those areas after treatment. Not cheap, but worth every penny.

[lulubelle]

Discover Your Child's Learning Style by Willis and Hodson helps you discover all types. I found out my son was a visual learning through this book. There are two types of visual learners, picture and print. If you get the book see page 147. They also have a great amount of resources, including curriculum that works best for each learning style, to look into. It also helps you find out what your child's talents are and how that can fit into their future area of work. It took a bit of time to get through it, and it includes about a 100 questions for your child to answer. Highly recommend it. Good luck.

[wide eyes & laughter]

Discover Your Child's Learning Style by Willis and Hodson helps you discover all types. I found out my son was a visual learning through this book. There are two types of visual learners, picture and print. If you get the book see page 147. They also have a great amount of resources, including curriculum that works best for each learning style, to look into. It also helps you find out what your child's talents are and how that can fit into their future area of work. It took a bit of time to get through it, and it includes about a 100 questions for your child to answer. Highly recommend it. Good luck.

 

 

Especially the part about dc's talents + future career paths. I am curious as to the springboard that guides discovery: What types of questions are asked?

 

Thanks!

[lulubelle]

It has different assessment

 

The disposition assessment has just 10 questions:

ex. I.... a. am fun to be with, b.get things done, c. ask questions, d.help others, e. think a lot

They are to be ranked from 5=the most like, 4=a lot like me, 1=the least like me

 

Talent assessment (11 parts): check all that are easy for you

example #1. playing music in my head, playing an instrument, whistling or humming, singing, learning to play new music, collecting records or tapes, memorizing words to songs, making up songs, composing music

 

Interest assessment: list all your interests in priority scale

 

Involvement issues: answer questions

example: what do you really care about?

at home, in the neighborhood, at school, in your town, in the world

 

Modality assessment: 8 questions

example: I prefer to a.hear a story, b.see a movie, c.play outside

 

Environmental assessment:

example: sound, check one quiet, noise, music or people talking

 

Considers favorite foods, colors and time of day.

 

That's it in a nut shell.

[wide eyes & laughter]

for all the examples! :)

[bookmomma]

I just realized that ds9 is a visual learner (I always thought he was predominately kinesthetic). I should have realized this. He HATES noise when he's trying to do his school work, and when I give him verbal instructions he immediately forgets. Why didn't I see this?

 

How can I teach him to learn? He HATES school. It's just drudgery for him. What can I do to engage him according to his learning style?

 

Also I want to mention that he's been a reluctant reader, but has recently taken off with Tintin books. I mention this because he's TERRIBLE at doing narrations. Up until this point, though (because he's not been a strong reader), he's always listened to stories. How can I help him learn to love history and WRITING about it as well? kwim?

 

I would love to give some tips/techniques, but I need more info. Can you describe his specific difficulties? Does he not like handwriting? Does he not like writing at all? How does he do in math? Spelling? More specific info on his difficulties would be helpful. Does he hate learning or the busy work?

[Amber in AUS]

Great thread. I have been looking for a learning styles book and the one mentioned looks excellent!

[Susan in TN]

My oldest was/is visual to an extreme. Narrations were a disaster, even when I'd just read a short paragraph at a time. He's 13yo now, and has improved greatly, but you can tell auditory processing just isn't his strength.

 

Some things that I did were to use as many picture books as possible. Also videos - as many videos as I could find related to the history or whatever other subject we were doing. Sometimes I'd just draw as much of the story as I could using stick figures.

 

Your son may never like writing about what he's reading. Especially at that young age, it can be a huge challenge. Keep him at it in small portions. I found that retelling a story in a creative way was more interesting and much easier for my son. For instance, writing about a bit of history but making the main characters ants or space aliens.

 

This may also sound odd, but when my son was younger, he could process verbal instructions much more easily if I sung them. I'm not a great singer, but I could sing "Son, please put a-way your toy, then go get your jacket on" to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle and it would "stick with him." Learning facts to music or rhythmic chants may be a great help to him.

[katalaska]

All of my explanations got lost when my computer swallowed my post and I don't have time to recreate them. So here are some websites/books that might be useful:

 

 

Dianne Craft--Right Brain Child

http://stores.diannecraft.org/Detail.bok?no=53

to hear her speak

http://diannecraft.com/speakingitinerary.htm

 

 

Biology: Life As We Know It!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0753462532/ref=s9subs_c2_14_at1-rfc_g1_si4?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=11B1SYHXRB9A94X43ZJP&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463383371&pf_rd_i=507846

 

Astronomy: Out of This World! (not in print yet)

http://www.amazon.com/Astronomy-Dan-Green/dp/0753417618/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231629829&sr=1-7

 

Periodic Table: Elements With Style! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0753460858/ref=s9subs_c2_14_at3-rfc_g1_si4?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=11B1SYHXRB9A94X43ZJP&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463383371&pf_rd_i=507846

 

Physics: Why Matter Matters http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0753462141/ref=s9subs_c2_14_at2-rfc_g1_si4?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=11B1SYHXRB9A94X43ZJP&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463383371&pf_rd_i=507846

 

Vocabulary Cartoons

http://www.amazon.com/Vocabulary-Cartoons-Building-Educated-Mnemonics/dp/0965242277/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1231629556&sr=11-1

[katalaska]

The Way Things Work book http://www.amazon.com/New-Way-Things-Work/dp/0395938473/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231629989&sr=8-1

and the DVDs by Schlessinger Media

http://www.libraryvideo.com/sm/twtwdvd.asp?mscssid=X7U64EKXLG9P9HD5FELANKCWSTTCBG0A

[LizzyBee]

I applaud you for looking for ways to help your son learn. One thing that jumps out at me is that, from your description, he seems to have a lot of the classic signs of auditory processing difficulties. Forgeting verbal instructions, noise aversion, narration difficulties all point to auditory difficulties. My son is very similar.

 

Good point. My visual and kinesthetic learners both have auditory processing disorder.

[Kareni]

You might find this Yahoo group of interest: homeschoolingcreatively.

 

Here is part of the group description:

 

"This group was first created in response to those attending my (Cindy G.) right-brained child workshops at the IL In-Home conference. I prefer the term "creative learner" to describe the child for which this group will focus.

 

This list is a place where we can come to understand and give value to our creative children as we home/unschool with them."

 

Regards,

Kareni

[4kids4me]

I would love to give some tips/techniques, but I need more info. Can you describe his specific difficulties? Does he not like handwriting? Does he not like writing at all? How does he do in math? Spelling? More specific info on his difficulties would be helpful. Does he hate learning or the busy work?

 

 

Sorry it took so long to answer! He doesn't mind handwriting, and it's pretty neat when he does copywork (though I can't say he's progressed any in neatness in three years!), but he doesn't like writing as a subject. At all. He's never done anything on his own.

 

Math isn't too bad. He learned his times tables using Times Tales and though he doesn't like do work at it, he does ok when he does. He doesn't like doing things that require multiple steps in math, but he's definitely a bit ahead of where his older sister was at this point, and she's a good student in all areas.

 

When he does narrations, well...he basically just can't. He can sequence a story if you have sentence strips, but to sequence what I've read outloud to him is useless. He's at the point *just now* that I think I can give him short passages (say from WWE level 2) to read on his own but he's still not processing them well at all (he KNOWS the story, he just can't tell me the story, kwim? For instance, he can answer most of the questions I ask about the story, but when I ask him to tell me it back, he just can't).

 

Spelling was going well until this year. He's doing SWO and once he got about 1/2 way through book D his spelling went downhill drastically. I've recently started sitting down with him and I have him spell the word out loud to me as he's looking at it, then write it in the air as he's looking at it, then spell it to me without looking at it. Come test time he's getting way better scores.

 

When he does music theory, he flies through it no problem. Cursive again, no problem. Playing the piano, he HATES it when he can't get it right right away, but when he gets it, he actually sounds like he "feels" the music more than his older sister, who's ahead of him.

 

Does that answer enough questions? :) Thanks!

[4kids4me]

I applaud you for looking for ways to help your son learn. One thing that jumps out at me is that, from your description, he seems to have a lot of the classic signs of auditory processing difficulties. Forgeting verbal instructions, noise aversion, narration difficulties all point to auditory difficulties. My son is very similar.

 

While it is a good idea to teach to the strength, you would be doing your child a big favor if you also work to remediate the weakness. Both reading and writing activities do emply auditory as well as visual function. With my local school, they were not at all interested in working on his auditory issues, only the language deficiencies that resulted from them. We had to seek therapy ourselves and ended up with using a neurodevelopmental approach. We had great success with NACD. We saw a tremendous improvement in all those areas after treatment. Not cheap, but worth every penny.

 

Wow, since I've read this I've done a bit of research online and it really does sound like my son! We live in Canada, so maybe the avenues for finding help are a little different, but I will persue this. Can you give me any tips on how to deal with this if it's what he's got?

[4kids4me]

I appreciate everyone's comments.

 

Katalaska - I would have LOVED to have read that post that your stinkin' computer ate -- please fire your computer! ;) I appreciate the book suggestions. They are the types of books my son would love.

 

Susan in TN, lauren, Kareni, lizzybee and bookmomma -- thanks so much for everything. I will be thinking about what everyone said and I've looked at all the links already. This has given me much to go on.

 

Caralyn :)

[4kids4me]

...I forgot to thank some other people. If you don't see your name listed, I still REALLY appreciate you input! Please forgive me.

 

Caralyn :)

[jayfromcleveland]

When I was a 9yob, I read tons of Superman comic books. I heard all the critiques from my mom and other adults, "they'll rot your brain, you'll go blind" blah blah. What it actually did was give me a life-long love of reading. Once I liked reading comics, it was a short hop to reading "regular" books. I've spent most of my adult life reading the great books of western history (all those WTM, classical education sorts of books).

 

So if your son likes Tintin, maybe you can find him other quality illustrated works. Be careful, there's plenty of garbage out there (e.g., many of the so-called "graphic novels.") I know that most "classical education" types will argue that visual learning is not "classical," but pragmatically, your son seems to need to develop a love of learning.

 

I've worked with a lot of scientists and engineers for over 20 years and almost all are visual learners rather than verbal learners. I've found that most tech types (guys anyway) have notorously poor spelling and handwriting, and usually have great difficulty putting their thoughts into coherent words. It's a left brain/right brain thing.

 

I'd encourage your son to do hands-on science projects. There's all sorts of kits from places like Tobin's Lab. You might want to check out the "Key to Geometry" series where kids learn geometry using hand drawings. Generally, I'd also ecnourage him to draw and develop that skill.

 

FWIW, astronomy is my bag and I emphasize the visual, observational aspects of learning the sky, as opposed to the "armchair" approach used in most other curricula. IMHO, it's much more practical and interesting to learn to observe nature directly rather than just read about it in some book. Praying for your son and his success! -jay

Edited January 23, 2009 by jayfromcleveland
missed a few typos