“Your learning style has more influence than you may realize and your preferred style guides the way you learn. They also change the way you internally represent experiences, the way you recall information, and even the words you choose."(www.learning –styles-online.com)
One of the great benefits of homeschooling is the ability to create curriculums tailored specifically for your student(s). A great way to begin this task is by figuring out how they best receive and process information aka their learning style. This is important because everyone receives and processes information differently. By understanding how your students learn, parents can find the best ways to engage them with their daily lesson plans. In the article “Learning Styles Again: Varking up the right tree” by Neil Fleming, Fleming states that students and teachers need a starting place for thinking about and understanding how they learn. He argues that a learning style is not a set of scores on some inventory, or a set of alphabetic symbols, or paragraphs of descriptor labels but rather a description of a process, or of preferences that encourage learners to think about how they learn. The acronym VARK stands for the four types of learners: Visual, Auditory, Read/write and Kinesthetic.
Visual learners: learn best by seeing and need to visualize the ideas that are presented to them.
What works for them:
• Graphics, charts, outlines
• Aesthetically pleasing workspaces
• incorporating videos that coincide with lesson plans
• Drawing pictures
• Flash cards
Auditory Learners: prefer to hear over reading/seeing it displayed.
What works for them:
• Repetition
• reciting information aloud
• They may find lectures beneficial
• Open dialogues about the lesson plans
• Audio books
Reading/writing learners: prefer to learn by interacting with text.
What works for them:
• Quizzes, taking notes and rewriting notes, handouts
• Quiet study times
• enjoy reading
O extra suggested reading to expand knowledge
• making lists to organize and remember information
Kinesthetic Learners: prefer hands on learning, experiential learning, doers
What works for them:
• Role playing
• writing things down to remember information
• Flash cards
• breaks in between lessons and studying
Check out these books to learn more about the different ways we learn!
Subject(s): Home schooling
| Home schooling -- Curricula | Education -- Parent participationClassroom management | Classroom environment | Effective teaching | Problem children -- Education | Electronic booksChild rearing | Success in children | Parent and child | Children -- Intelligence levels | Child development | Brain -- Research -- Popular works | Gifted children -- Education