How Is Your Child Learning? Being Aware of Learning Styles

You are now receiving information about your physical environment through your senses. You probably know that already. What you may not realise is that a person standing beside you will be picking up the same information but differently.

Learning, at the very basic level, is really about our senses picking up information from the world around us; then our mind processes them into useful knowledge. Each one of us has a natural tendency to prefer one way of receiving information to others. This eventually influences our preferred style of learning.

Currently it is identified that there are three main types of preferred styles – visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Visuals are people who have a preference to learn by watching, pictures and visualizing them. Auditory people learn best from listening, getting oral instructions or discussing. Kinesthetic people are those that learn from doing, touching and feeling.

Though it is common for a person to have a blend of the three styles, individuals will have one dominant learning style. This develops through our learning experience. If we master something really well in one way, we tend to like the feeling of being able to learn easily this way. So naturally we tend to associate the joy of learning to this style. Example, if you find that you learn by discussing with others, you will most likely want to learn new things the same way in the future.

Needless to say, the difference in learning styles becomes most obvious in school learning. This is where learning mismatch comes about. In a typical class forty students will be organising and connecting the same information in their brains in very different ways. Unfortunately, the classroom environment in our schools tends to teach mainly through visual and auditory modes. The teacher uses pictures, writes out on the board and verbally explains concepts. Guess who is losing out here?

Pupils who have a kinesthetic preferred learning style will not be able to process information in such an environment. Ideally, lessons are best taught with a mixture of the three modes – use of pictures, verbal explanations and hands on session to cater to the mix. With the limitation in time and resources and a large student-teacher ratio, this will be quite unlikely. Unfortunately, kinesthetic students tend to be restless and are most often wrongly identified as having Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD).

In Science, a lot of the concepts can be quite abstract when taught purely through pictures and verbal explanation. That is why hands on activities and experimentations are so significant to learning of Science. At Science Buddies, we have been very aware of the limitations of the traditional classroom setting and designed lessons that take into account all the three learning styles in a balanced manner. That is the reason why pupils who don’t seem to do well in Science at school suddenly seem to like Science and approach the subject with joy and enthusiasm.

Despite the natural preference for a particular learning style, every child must learn to learn using the other two modes. Sticking to only one style will make them lose out. Smart learners are those who are flexible in their learning modes, being able to use different modes in different contexts. But to do this, learners must know what is their dominant earning style first. In the next article, we will give you tips on how to identify the preferred learning style of your child.