Most individuals, including children, tend to develop a preference for one kind of learning style over another. The vast majority of children respond better to the visual path of teaching. The second most preferred medium of instruction is auditory. People usually use a combination of visual and auditory modes to impart education. However, it is necessary to recognise what kind of learning inclination or style does the child have which in turn is a direct reflection of his way of thinking.
Your Child has Learning Difficulties?
Difficulties usually arise when a child’s preferred educational mode of instruction gets blocked. For example, a child may be suffering from visual problems like focusing on what is being instructed or he has problems in the eye-brain pathway. Again, a child who depends heavily on hearing something to be interested in it may be suffering from some kind of an auditory problem. It is advisable to make sure that the child isn’t facing any of such issues.
Verbal or Visual Learning?
Children could also have a learning style that could be mainly described as being verbal which means that they have a thought processes that takes place in the verbal domain or they could have a principally visual mode of learning which means that their thought processes mainly functions in the pictorial representation format. Those with a verbal style of learning tend to react better to lesson being read out aloud in the classroom.
Those with a more visual mode will react better to detailed illustrations and drawings that accompany text.
Such students are much better at observations and drawing inferences. A visual learner is a student who learns much better well from a stimulus presented to him, invariably a stimulus which can be seen, not just instructed or ‘told’ to him. This kind of a student learns more by looking around and observing his surroundings.
Individual Preferences
There are other factors which contribute to a complete assessment of an individual’s preferred style of learning. Such factors are the actual, conscious and voluntary choices of a student or any learner. Some children may prefer the independent way of studying, i.e. without the company of some friends or classmates while some vs. are dependent learners, i.e. when asked to study alone they tend to get anxious by the mere feeling of being alone in a study room.
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