Learning Styles

Originally Posted November 19th, 2012

You are at lunch with a bunch of friends, everyone orders appetizers, drinks and complicated main dishes but your server doesn’t write anything down. You all watch amazed as she repeats back everything ordered, flawlessly, the group marvels at her talents and rights it off to an incredible short term memory.

Your server is an auditory leaner. Someone who learns exclusively my means of listening, not taking notes but instead repeating back what they have heard.

I sit with my son and read with him he jiggles his foot. It drives me crazy but if I ask him to stop jiggling his foot, he stops reading.

My daughter drew the photosynthesis cycle so she could fully grasp it. To describe a soccer play she might use a salt shaker to kick a grape into a goal she built on the kitchen table with toothpicks.

He is a kinaesthetic learner and she is a visual learner.

There are various learning styles that have been studied and researched and only in recent years have the become something discussed amongst parents and teachers. These styles are quirky and can present in ways that can be misinterpreted or worse, misdiagnosed, for inattentiveness, a learning disability or something that should be “fixed” with prescription drugs.

I was in a meeting last week with two friends. One had a notepad but no pen, the other had nothing on the table and I had pen and paper and I began to write and doodle before we even starting talking.  

My two meeting mates were both auditory learners which is described as being someone who “...learns through listening, someone who depends on hearing and speaking as a main way of learning. Auditory learners must be able to hear what is being said in order to understand and may have difficulty with instructions that are written. They also use their listening and repeating skills to sort through the information that is sent to them.” (Wikipedia)

So this explained why they don’t carry pen and paper with them. Lani brought her notepad prop but forgot the pen. My friend Dave only takes notes when he knows a client expects it of him but more often than not he is writing a grocery list, not noting what is being discussed. Writing it down would diminish his understanding of the conversation. 

Dave’s learning style went undiagnosed for years. Considering how much of elementary school is reading, and doing, building things, piling blocks, sorting through shapes, it wasn’t long before he was way behind and thought to have some sort of disability or sheer lack of interest.

He tried sitting quietly in the back trying to be invisible, he tried acting out being because being the class clown was better than being the village idiot. He was bullied and he bullied. His path is heartbreaking to listen to. From his own feelings of failure to a tutor being inappropriate but his parents just figured he would say anything to get out of school work. Finally he was sent to boarding to school to smarten up and things didn't get much better.

It wasn’t until high school that someone finally figured out what was going on with Dave who by time had devised some learning techniques of his own. Once he got help he caught up fast and graduated on the Dean’s List. He is a successful entrepreneur today who admits he over scrutinizes much of what his daughter does in an effort to make sure she doesn’t go down the same path he did. Makes sense.

Keep an eye out. Watch what is going on when your child is truly focused. Is it noisy in the house or quiet? Would they rather listen to an audio book than read it, do they build to show you what they mean?

Think about what happens when you bring home that box from Ikea - who pulls out the instructions and reads it front to back first, counts and separates all the screws and who dives in head first?

We have different ways of learning and doing things. Go here to find out more. It will help you understand your kids and may save your marriage ;-)