Communication is a key parenting skill. However, good communication varies from person to person. Success guru Tony Robbins and classroom teacher Beverlee Brick both agree that understanding learning styles can help with communication in any environment. With your children, it can help you keep them engaged in a lesson, whether that lesson is homework, life skills or learning to do what's right. There are many dichotomies of learning styles. One common, and easy to observe, example is sensory learning: visual, audio and kinesthetic.
Identifying Learning Styles
Step 1
Listen for audio cues for different sensory learning styles, says Brick. An audio learner often talks in terms of sound, music or speech. Visual learners might use phrases such as "Do you see what I mean?" A kinesthetic learner talks about or uses metaphors involving, movement and feeling. Children usually use terms from all three modes but trend toward the terms that make sense for their learning style.
Step 2
Watch your child learn to get a sense of her learning style. If your child learns best by reading or looking at a diagram, she is a visual learner. If your child learns best listening to a lecture, asking questions or memorizing recordings, she's audio. Kinesthetic learners want to participate physically in a learning activity. For some, the act of writing down or drawing a picture of the concept is enough to remember it.
Step 3
Look at problem areas for your child, paying special attention to how the information is presented. Not all kinesthetic learners excel at PE, but a visual learner might have trouble in a class that's based on discussion and role-playing.
Applying Learning Styles
Step 1
Use words and metaphors that are congruent with your child's learning style. It may seem overly simple, but Robbins reports that some will respond to the difference between "Does that sound fair?" and "Does this look all right?"
Step 2
Listen actively with your child's learning style in mind. According to communication therapist Deborah Tannen, differing communication styles lead to more family arguments than any other cause. This can be especially important if you have two children with different learning styles.
Step 3
Practice reframing, or describing a problem or process using different words. If your child is having trouble remembering or figuring something out, it might help if you express it in a way that is more attuned to his learning style.
Step 4
Combine learning modes whenever possible. People learn better in their own learning style than in others. However, according to Robbins, people learn even better and retain longer if they encode information using more than one learning mode. This is why it's easy to memorize a song; singing along with the radio engages both your kinesthetic and audio modes.
References
- Beverlee Brick; Classroom Teacher; Hillsboro, OR
- "Unlimited Power"; Anthony Robbins; 1997
- "That's Not What I Meant;" Deborah Tannen; 1989
