Heart of the Matter Friday Meme: Your Children's Learning Styles

You may (or most likely may not!) have noticed that I added a new picture to my sidebar: Heart of the Matter online homeschooling magazine. I just discovered this magazine a couple of weeks ago and have enjoyed browsing their articles and features. Each Friday they do a meme (don't ask me to define that.) for us homeschoolers so we can share with each other concerning all sorts of schooling/parenting/homemaking issues. Today's meme is about our children's learning styles.

I hesitated doing this meme because I have never really been able to figure out learning styles! With me, it's more of a , "hmmmm....that didn't work!" process. One of our children had some occupational therapy done last year and the OT told us her learning style seemed to be auditory...I still don't see it.

So everything from here forward about my kids is speculation. Does it count that I am not totally satisfied with being unsure? I have reserved a few good books by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias from my library. (I think I have read one of these before or at least a part of it.) The first book is called The Way They Learn. If I finish the book this time, I'll be sure and review it later.

Most people agree that the main learning styles are visual, auditory, and tactile/kinesthetic. Since I have never been certain which category most describes my girls, I try to hit them all. Here are a few examples:

Auditory: We read book to the girls and they listen to lots of books on CD. We also use songs to learn things. It was a song that taught my girls the continents and Mary Evelyn some basic math facts. And of course, every kid learns the alphabet with a song!

Visual: Visual learners remember what they see. We learn a Bible verse each week. We do say it often (auditory) but we also look at it a lot too. Our map work is visual as well.

Kinesthetic: Kinesthetic/tactile learners need to DO something or TOUCH something to learn. Mary Evelyn's math curriculum is a very hands on program with a lot of manipulatives and games. I have seen her grasp the concepts MUCH better with this curriculum versus our former program (which was a traditional workbook program).

Hopefully I will learn more about my own kids by reading the book I mentioned. Here is an article that some might find helpful as well. So while I could not give definitive answers about my own children's learning styles, I am thankful that the meme sent me researching a little more. If you would like to see what others are saying about learning styles, go here for links to the others who have blogged about it.