Having Different Talents & Capabilities: on Children with Visual, Auditory, & Bodily-Kinesthetic Learning Styles

On the different learning styles, and how as adults, we can, help all the children with these learning style variations learn better, translated…

The “Visuals” are Good at Images, the “Auditory”, Good with Sounds, the Bodily-Kinesthetics, Good with Hands-on………

Everybody in Born Different

Once, in the middle of the nights, I was fast asleep, and the phone rang, it was a call from my friend in Taipei, he’d not known that I was in New York, that there’s, a 12-hour time difference.

I was fast asleep, and I’d asked him for his phone number, told him that I’ll call him back after I’m awake in the morn.  He’d told it to me, and I’d, grabbed a pen, and a business card from my dresser drawer, wrote it down.

and, here’s that “chart” for all of you, who are, “visual”…found online

The next day when I woke, I’d recalled the call I received in the middle of the night, and I’d, found that business card, but, I’d found, that perhaps it’s because there was, wax on the business card, and I’d used a water-based pen, and so, it’d, not appeared.  I’d started, blaming myself, “ahhhhhhhh!  It’s like, I’d not, written it down at all, how can I be so scatterbrained!” as my wife heard, she’d smiled and asked, “You mean that number from the middle of the night last night?  Although I was, fast asleep, but I’d, heard you repeated it, I have some memories of it, it was, XXXXXXX”, I was suspicious, and called that number, and it was, the friend who’d called who’d, picked up.

Holy!  I was, really impressed, I’m, in awe of my wife, and felt, a bit, scary too, the number I couldn’t recall in the middle of the nights when I was awake, she’d, remembered it, when she was, fast asleep?  Isn’t that, too scary?  I’d, needed to, watch out for what I say in my sleep from here on out!

Long ago, I’d found that my wife, was very different compared to me, for instance, when we go to parties, I’d had troubles, remembering the names of old friends who came towards me, but, if my wife’s right by my side, she’d, gotten their names right, and, I’d, only needed to cue her, “you know, it’s the one who’d, had a fight on that birthday party we went to from before?”, my wife can, tell me his name, I GUARANTEE it.  This showed, how I may be good with remembering things, remembering the faces, but not the names.  While my wife may be good with names, but, not really, recognize people’s faces.

Everybody is born different, some of us are “visual”, some of us are “auditory”, while others may be, “bodily-kinesthetic”.  The visual learners, as the instructors draw the maps, the charts onto the blackboard in class, it may be easier for them to remember, and if you asked him what happened in class, the person will say, ‘let me see, how did the professor draw it up on the board?”, and as you’d asked the person where it was in the textbooks, he would remember where it was in the text, in the chapters, the location of the passages, then, tell you the answer.  There was a quiz show in the earlier years in Taiwan “By the Seconds”, with the contestants from the high schools all around the country, I’d remembered how good a student was, he was special too, as I’d asked the questions, he’d not made eye-contact, nor looked at his fellow schoolmate, only kept his head lowered, and, started drawing things with his fingers on the tables, then, answered the questions correctly.  I’d asked him why he’d done it like that, he’d told me he had to think and draw at the same time, visualizing what the answer looked like in his mind, recalling it on the textbooks, then, he could, give me the right answer.  I’m guessing, that he was a combination of visual and bodily-kinesthetic learning styles, that touch was, the way he’d, written the answers down.

Which Style of Learning Does Your Child Have?

The “visual”, the “Auditory”, or the “Bodily-Kinethetic”, the parents can note when the kids are still, very young.

If your child loves to read on her/his own, but didn’t enjoy listening to you read, and needed you to point to the illustrations as you read to her/him, s/he might be a visual learner.

If s/he loved listening to you read to her/him, but not enjoyed flipping through the pages of the books her/himself, as you take her/him out to the playgrounds, you’d asked her/him when you get home, “What sort of equipment are on the playground we just came from?”  S/he could immediately tell you about what there were, without going through the passages that s/he took as s/he was in the playground in her/his mind, then, s/he may be, auditory.

If as s/he tells you think s/he needed to gesture a lot.  Even if you’d rad to her/him, pointed to the words as you read, s/he became insistent, and pushed you away, grabbed the book, and needed to point to the words as s/he read, that means, that s/he is, bodily-kinesthetic.

For the “visual” children, you can give her/him the illustrated books, the charts (for instance, a family tree), the maps (like of the playground).  As you teach her/him arithmetic, draw an apple or some small animals, to get her/his attention.

illustration from the papers online

For the “auditory” style, you can sing-along with her/him, have her/him recite the nursery rhymes, so s/he will learn and sing at the same time, you can also, read the stories to her/him, then, have her/him repeat what s/he heard back, to see how much s/he had, heard.

For the “bodily-kinesthetic”, you can take her/him outdoors, exercise more, take up sculpting, or pottery making, anything that gives her/him hands-on experiences, like in the science museums.  It would be fitting, that you can provider for her/him, a ton of toys that require her/him to put together on her/his own.

Although, there may be the differences of learning styles in children, but it’s not set in stone, we can, enforce the development of sets of skills, on what the child is already good at, we can, guide, to let her/him use her/his talents; and on the skill sets s/he isn’t that good at, we also need to, reinforce them too.  Because the world they will face, is multifaceted, in order to make sure they will, adapt well in the world, we need to, let them develop all of these skills.

And so, this, is this man’s experience with children he’d encountered, and, there are, the various sets of materials you can devise for the different style learners, because one size does NOT fit all, not when it comes to educating the younger generation, because each and every kid is unique, and, if you don’t pay attention to how different they all learned, then, you will end up, neglecting a major group of children who learned in a different way than the vast majority, and that’s not good!