Identifying Your Child’s Learning Style

Understanding your child’s learning style is the best place to start, if you want to support your child’s learning process.

Never heard of the phrase ‘Learning Styles’?

Simply put, your child’s learning style is the method or channel with which they learn best. It affects how they learn and retain information, so understanding it is crucial to their learning journey. It will help their learning process fun and fulfilling for them. Think of it as their special learning language. If you don’t speak it, whatever academic concept you’re trying to communicate to them won’t be passed across effectively.

Learning Styles are also important because they help you tailor your child’s academic needs and the right solutions for their academic difficulty. For example, if you think your child hates Math because they do so poorly in it, you might be wrong. They’re just not being taught according to their learning style.

Now that you know what learning styles are, let’s discuss the different learning styles and how to identify them.

The Four Learning Styles

According to the VARK model, the 4 learning styles include:

Visual
Auditory,
Reading & Writing
Kinesthetic.

Here’s an overview of all four learning styles:

Visual

Visual learners are better able to retain information when it’s presented to them in a graphic depiction, such as arrows, charts, diagrams, symbols, and more. Similar to how designers use visual hierarchy to emphasize specific design elements, visual learners thrive with clear pictures of information hierarchy.

Auditory

Sometimes referred to as “aural” learners, auditory learners prefer listening to information that is presented to them vocally. These learners work well in group settings where vocal collaboration is present and may enjoy reading aloud to themselves, too.

Reading & Writing

Focusing on the written word, reading and writing learners succeed with written information on worksheets, presentations, and other text-heavy resources. These learners are note-takers and perform strongly when they can reference written text.

Kinesthetic

Taking a physically active role, kinesthetic learners are hands-on and thrive when engaging all of their senses during course work. These learners tend to work well in scientific studies due to the hands-on lab component of the course.

Simple ways to identify your child’s learning style

The first and most important step to identifying your child’s learning style is to watch how they interact with their world.

Some kids love reading and writing. They read everything! They’re likely to be reading & writing learners.
Other kids enjoy watching or interacting with lots of visuals. They can watch a cartoon and tell you the names of all the dinosaurs that walked the face of the earth. Chances are that they are visual learners.
While you find some kids not liking tv or books but enjoy manipulating, breaking and opening objects, trying to figure out how it works,. They are always behind the chairs, somewhere playing with tools and objects. They are very much likely to be a kinesthetic learner. You find them dragging the kitchen with you. They don’t want to listen, instead they want to press the blender button or bake alongside with you. These kind of students learn better that way.
Meanwhile, some children love listening to both others and themselves. They like to read aloud, have discussions with others, and are very easily distracted by sound. They are likely to be auditory learners.

Now, it’s important to note that the kind of learning style your child has doesn’t affect whether they will succeed or not. It’s simply a part of their path to learning more effectively. If you’re still confused about your child’s learning style, we’re happy to help. You can book an online academic counseling session with anyone of our counselors at your convenience here.

The Gradely Blog