Kiddipedia
There is a quote that floats amongst the teaching pages I follow and it reads: “If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.”
It won’t come as any surprise that all children learn differently however, there are 3 general ways children (and adults) learn.
- Visual Learner: Remember the saying, ‘it goes in one ear and out the other?’ Well, perhaps these children are visual learners. Children who are visual learners need to see the information. They remember what they see more than what they hear. This is how I learn, so you will often find me with a pen and paper in hand, writing information down to look back over.
- Auditory Learner: Auditory learners learn by hearing and listening. They can retain information from listening to someone tell it and respond to spoken instructions well.
- Kinaesthetic learners: Kinaesthetic learners learn by doing. They could find the above learning styles challenging as they need to tinker and explore and find out how something works, rather than being shown or told how it works.
In any classroom, there should be varied teaching styles to support learners of all three. However, if your child has a teacher who focuses on one learning style for example: auditory and they like to stand up and speak and explain instructions, give information, talk about how things work and your child is a kinaesthetic learner, it’s not hard to see how problems can arise in the classroom for your child. They simply may not understand as they are not retaining the information because they need to explore it, to move around, to be involved with it and make sense of it in their way.
If your child is struggling in the classroom and you’re not too sure why- this could be something to chat to the teacher about.
You may also like to read:
Forget the worksheet, 10 strategies for starting school
5 Engaging Free Learning Experiences for Home
Too many books? I think what you mean is not enough bookshelves
