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Enhancing Learning Styles of Your Children - Some Methods and Techniques
By Andrew Loh
If your child does not find, the learning style used in the classroom suited to his or her taste, the result could be a derailed classroom performance and poor grades. Your child may also struggle to understand the lessons taught by teachers. It is possible for you to help your child to comprehend difficult lessons by making him or her practice at your home by using a learning style that best suits the personality. To find out more about the learning style, you may need to contact your children's teachers and discuss about the classroom preferences and likings. When you learn about how your child learns best, it becomes easy for you to create a system of learning both at the house and in the classroom.
In the past and even now, the most common form of learning style is by using the power of auditory perception. However, only about 10% of secondary schools students learn by using this method. Educational experts and academicians now realize the need to deliver lessons and instructions in a manner that accommodates all learning styles.
Learning and understanding your child's learning style can help you in many ways:
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Keep your child's expectations somewhat realistic.
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Assist your child perform better in classroom and elsewhere.
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Help teach your children to cope with skills for a diverse variety of situations that are not to the taste of their personality.
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Help children learn in an accelerated manner.
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Assist them to use the best learning style to absorb lessons in a quicker time.
Before enhancing children' learning styles, you should discover your children's learning style by observing in what manner they tackle new assignments and later interact with the environment around them. Here are some simple tips:
If your child is a visual learner, he or she will:
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Excel in observing minute details about everything.
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Easily find out similarities and differences among things.
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Possess an excellent eye-hand coordination.
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Act deliberate and intentional.
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Find it very difficult to remember direction through verbal commands.
If your child is a auditory/verbal learner, he or she will:
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Like to talk to him/herself.
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Show an inclination to ask too many questions.
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Find it very difficult to keep quiet.
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Make lot of noise without any productive work.
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Not like too many sounds emanating at any time.
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Like to show what they are doing.
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Act very social with friends and teachers.
If your child is a physical learner, he or she will:
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Like to be in constant movement.
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Like to handle things and objects.
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Like to understand things to learn and know more about them.
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Like to move around a lot to learn new things
Now, the big question is how you can enhance their learning styles. Every child is different and each child has his or her own learning styles. Here are some simple tips to enhance your child's learning style:
If you feel that your child is a visual learner, you can send out many messages by using your facial expressions. In fact, your child will be observing your facial and body expressions to check how you are responding to him or her. Ensure that you are sending only positive messages to your child. Visual learners can learn best by using anything that is visual or graphical in nature. It means that your child will like to use more of visual things while learning. Make sure that you use lot of graphics and pictures while teaching your children. One simple way is to provide them video-interactive lesson plans to drive home important points. A visual learner can learn best when he or she interact with things that create mental images.
On the other hand, teaching children who prefer auditory style of learning is quite challenging. If your child is an auditory learner, you can engage him or her in deep conversations and lectures. Music tends to rejuvenate your child while he or she is learning. Background music can help your child to remember lessons in an efficient manner. Sound will make a very good medium of instruction for these children. Make sure that you are providing all those items and things that help them to be more creative and imaginative. Parents can talk their children for hours to teach them basic lessons, while teachers can help them to speak out their mind about the lessons learnt.
Children who possess a physical learning style are very active and agile. They are always hungry for information. They can find out about things without your guidance or help. These children are born explorers and they always learn by exploring things around them. They also like to discover about things around them. Regular schools cannot just obstruct their moments. Your child can learn very quickly if you leave him alone with objects and patterns. To train and educate such children, you will need to provide plenty of objects and playthings related to engineering, construction and designing.
Some of the most important keywords that you can use to educate your children:
Visual learners
You may use keyword phrases like these:
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Let's look at it in a different angle
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Let us see how this thing works for you.
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I find it very difficult to picture it
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Can you draw a diagram, picture or a map?
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Can you look at it with a different perspective?
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I can never forget that image!
Verbal learners
You may use keyword phrases like these:
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Tell me sentence by sentence
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Let us discus about it later.
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The analogy you are looking for is ....
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I can listen to your opinion but I am not too sure I agree.
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Can I spell it out?
Physical Learners
You may use keyword phrases like these:
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It looks OK to me.
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I cannot make out this....
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Stay in contact
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Go and talk to.....
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It does not look good to me.
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I have good opinion about this thing.
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My hunch is that this thing can work...
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I can follow your movement
Choosing the right type of learning style can help your child to stay on the right track all the time. It also helps them to focus in their work and develop the right attitude towards their life. You may wish to pay enough attention towards your children's learning styles to make them perform better in their classroom.
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Discover Your Child's Learning Style: Children Learn in Unique Ways
By Mariaemma Willis and Victoria Kindle Hodson
It has become widely accepted that not all children learn alike. Some grasp information best by reading, while others learn better through listening or discovering concepts in a hands-on fashion. Two longtime educators-- Mariaemma Willis and Victoria Kindle-Hodson--suggest in this guide that there are actually five aspects to a student's learning style beyond the simple modes of visual, auditory, or kinesthetic.
Their "learning style profile" takes into account a child's talents, interests, preferred learning environment, and disposition, as well as the three more familiar modes. Written as a workbook, with a series of do-it-yourself assessments, the guide offers parents a chance to diagnose their child's learning style in all five areas. A chart of activities accompanies each style.
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