Yesterday was a big day in our family. Like so many families this time of year, we sent a little one to his first day of kindergarten. Along with first day photos and excitement came a bit of anxiety, some for our new student and even some for mom.
Classrooms and homework tend to be very language heavy and may overwhelm visual students,
The fun of vacation and summer adventures are winding down and kids are back in school. This is good news in many ways – but this can also be a source of great frustration for our visual, kinesthetic students. Sitting still and listening can be hard, especially for kids that need to see, touch and […]
Have you ever wanted to sit down with Bette and ask her questions?
There are several different learning styles, and each has a direct impact on how your child learns, processes information, and their level of success in the classroom.
It’s back-to-school season — and just like that, swimsuits and towels are traded in for school clothes and backpacks, summer toys are exchanged for binders and school supplies and ice chests are replaced by lunch boxes.
Ever wonder why people do the things they do? Why doesn’t your husband read the directions? Why can’t you find anything once you take the time to file the papers in your office? Why do you have to pinch and poke yourself to stay awake during language heavy presentations?
It’s all about wiring. The way our brains are wired has a direct affect on the way we organize or don’t organize; the way we see, think and do and the way we operate at home, school and work. There are three distinct learning styles: auditory, visual and tactile.
Auditory folks are good with words and logical, linear thinking. Visual learners are big picture, innovative thinkers that need to see things. Tactile people take a very hands-on approach to life.
So what kind of thinker are you? There are a variety of learning style tests on-line but here’s a quick question to get you started:
Imagine you just came back from the store with a new cabinet that needs to be assembled. How would you proceed?
We recently had a wedding in the family – our first. While planning and executing such a grand and lovely event was thoroughly enjoyable, it was also a brilliant study on the way left and right-brain people approach a given task.
Our oldest daughter, the bride, is a visual-spatial thinker, full of ideas and vision; there’s a lot of that going on in our family. The groom’s, a social, left -brain analytical thinker, prefers numbers, budgets and excel spreadsheets; there’s a lot of that going on in their family. When it came time to plan the wedding, the right-brain, visual bride and bridesmaids immersed themselves in magazines, websites and social media, searching out ideas – visually. Pinterest became a family obsession, with everyone in the family searching out and sharing ideas. A few trips to stores, photographers, florists and wedding vendors, brought more options and ideas.
Have you been labeled – scatter brained, distracted, inattentive, even impulsive? Has your child? Perhaps ADD or ADHD diagnosis has been away to explain these behaviors. Diagnosing ADD or ADHD is highly subjective and comes with a multitude of negative connotations. But what if it’s not a negative? What if its not even ADD ?
There’s good news. Visual learners share many of the same traits as ADD. Visual learners need more visual, hands on learning experiences and often struggle to organize, stay on task and pay attention. This is increasingly apparent with children in today’s language heavy, test oriented classrooms. And yet there are great advantages to being a visual learner. Some of our most creative minds, great leaders and innovative business people have been and are visual thinkers.
