I recently took a mini-vacation with my oldest daughter. We spent a few days together in sunny Montauk, NY, enjoying the beach and delighting in the spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean. While my daughter and I always enjoy our time together, I was also blessed to have Julia Child join us.
While the left and right side of our brain represent auditory and visual learning styles, there is one more learner that needs to be recognized. Kinesthetic learners, also known as tactile learners, represent those children that need to touch, see and move when they learn. Traditional classrooms, driven by lecture and large class sizes can be especially challenging for these learners. When we understand their need to be physically engaged, we can make adjustments to better accommodate these learners. Click HERE to take our quiz and find out if your child is a Kinesthetic learner!
As parents, we have a vested interest in understanding the nuances of left and right-brain thinking. A child’s ability to learn is directly affected by the way their brain sees and processes information. Knowing if your child is an auditory, visual or kinesthetic learner will enable you to choose activities that support their learning needs, while working to develop their weaker areas. Click HERE to take our quiz and find out if your child is a VISUAL learner!
There has been much written about the hemispheres of our brain and the way they define our thinking style. Our left brain is the logical, analytical side of us, while the right is where creativity lies. While we use both sides of our brains for almost every task we do, each side of our brain has its area of specialty, which in turn influences the way we think. For children, brain dominance has a profound impact on school success. Understanding your child’s thinking style can help you be sure they are receiving the kind of instruction they need.
Art class is not just about art. Art and its foundational skill—drawing—is about reading and writing visually. When children learn to draw, they learn to see, evaluate and discern—visually. Many other subjects are affected by a child’s visual discernment and reading skills, such as math and reading.
Recently, I was invited to be part of a teacher in-service at a local Montessori pre-school. We met in the evening, after the children had gone home. As I entered the classroom, I saw shelves lined with familiar Montessori activities—all colorful, well-organized and designed to entice young learners. There is a special place in my heart for Montessori pre-schools, because their teaching method includes techniques and tools that work well for a multitude of learning styles, especially our visual and kinesthetic learners. Their engaging activities get the children interested but are also designed to help children develop discrimination, sequencing and organization skills that are critical to successful learning.
It’s Saturday morning—time to take my grandson, Brayden, to the library for a new set of picture books. Oh, how he loves books! First, we go around the house gathering all the books we need to return. As we review them, Brayden has a bit of emotion about letting some of his favorites go, but is encouraged about finding new books—new “friends”. We jump in the car, drive over and enjoy the return process before heading in to select new friends to check out and take home.
Cooking with our kids is a great way to spend time together while involved in purposeful activity. But there’s much more that happens when we invite our kids into the kitchen. Cooking is an engaging, visual, spatial, tactile, hands-on activity that can reinforce classroom learning while developing fundamental cognitive skills.
After a late night reading stacks and stacks of books during our “sleepover,” my grandson and I were up early and in the kitchen to start our day, making and doing. Brayden, who is four years old, climbed on his special kitchen stool, while I got out the ingredients. Making breakfast quiche was going to be a great opportunity to measure, pour, mix and roll, all things that would thoroughly engage a curious preschooler. This multisensory activity is one that I often engaged my own children in as they grew, knowing the benefits go far beyond just having fun.
Writing my book, Being Visual, has been a long and insightful labor. Now that it’s complete (to be published September 2012), I have been honored to speak and share what it’s like to be a visual-spatial learner, the struggles these visual kids face in our current education system and some suggestions of how to better reach them. A few days ago, I spoke to a group of businessmen and women that work in the field of education, and when I was finished speaking, I was thankful to have several people from the group share their thoughts with me.
