Not everyone learns the same way, and that creates problems in classrooms and at home.
As a generalisation, there are three types of learners: auditory, kinaesthetic, and visual. These are the main channels of learning. It’s a generalisation because, a person is more likely to be a combination of two (or more) rather than simply one, as in being purely an auditory learner. How do you identify a kinaesthetic learner?
Kinaesthetic learners just want to touch and feel everything. As adults, their mates give them plenty of personal space because they just want to playfully thump them all the time. Their house is a mess because they just want to collect and pull everything apart, just to see how it works. Putting it together again may be another matter. Does this sound like someone you married?
It is easy to identify an adult kinaesthetic learner, but how do you identify it in your child?
Well for starters, their teacher will be strongly suggesting you attend Parent Teacher Nights, so they can discuss how disruptive this young pupil is in the classroom. They fidget, leave their seat to touch things, move things and find it difficult to sit and learn. They may not even be aware of their movements as they are easily distracted by the movement of others, and want to investigate.
This student needs a hands-on approach to learning so sitting in class and listening, reading from a book, or even taking notes from the whiteboard is not the best way for them to learn. They will respond better when learning is through participation, such as in chemistry experiments, or building a model. These students do well in sports, drama and live for school lunch breaks. By the age of seven, they have been categorised as being an under-achiever, or worse still, hyperactive. But fear not.
Being a kinaesthetic learner is not a problem, as approximately fifteen percent of the population are kinaesthetic learners. The problem is our education system is geared towards auditory and visual learners, and kinaesthetic learners are the speed bump in our systems road to education. What can you do?
For starters, accept them for who they are, healthy active children. Give them down time after an active session, and reward them for the tasks they perform. These guys may be reward driven. Kinaesthetic learners do best with images so paint them a picture of what you want from them and give them regular breaks while studying.
Your student is likely to become an actor, dancer, physio-therapist, massage therapist, surgeon, mechanic, carpenter, P.E. teacher, athlete, farmer, etc.
The point is, be patient, give them space and let them grow…
XtraMile Tuition Strategies makes learning fun again
One night I left the stove on at my stinky house and I was woken by the unfamiliar smell of fire and hoary rubbish that I left on the table. By the time I got to the kitchen, I smelt the fire cooking a stale apple core and a decayed banana peel that smelt gross, and the dog food that smelt nice. The fireman said, ‘’You smell like you haven’t had a bath for 6 months!” and I said, “That’s true”. He sprayed rusty water on me with his big water hose until I smelt as lovely as a rose. While the fire brigade was busy washing me, my house was busy turning into a vessel of lovely ashes.
This morning, my friend, Jonah, who is eight year’s old, like me, shot a nerf-bullet to get his mate’s attention in the wood-house. They were both at Jonah’s family’s Californian farmhouse, just beside the magic tree. The bullet hit the magic tree in the face just as it was waking up and that hurt it a lot and it caused the tree to fall. The tree dragged itself up and then whacked the old wood-house into lots of bits of wood until the barn didn’t exist anymore. Jonah and his mate called 000 and the ambulance took them to the hospital.
On one rainy day in the middle of Brisbane, Joseph my school friend, bought two acres of farm land. The very next day he was out in the field sowing pumpkin seeds in the damp soil when he spotted an enormous prancing horse running across the seeds he had just sowed. He was very happy because the structure of the equestrian creature was perfect for pulling the plough which meant he could do more in less time. To his surprise the horse was already very experienced with pulling the plough and so they were ready to do a day’s labour together. With the help of his mighty horse my school friend became a successful farmer.
When John and Jeff came to the ditch on the way to school, Jeff slipped and hit his head on a stick. The ten-year-old twins were alike in many ways as both were playful and blonde. John came down to Jeff to remove the stick from his head when suddenly a vicious alligator burst from the water and chased them up the slope and all the way to school. The teacher opened the window and through a baton at the alligator and the kids ran into the school room. The teacher said, “That’s what happens when you’re late for school’.
It was just after lunch and Bang! The puppet knocked over the bookshelf which fell on top of the new television. She had straight yellow wool for hair with black sewn-on buttons for eyes and inside her long pink dress was my hand. Mum stomped into the room as the puppet grinned but it was me that Mum shouted at. When Mum turned her back, the puppet jumped on the counter, ripped the paintings off the wall and tipped over the bowl of fruit. After lunch, I took the puppet off my hand , picked up the mess and mopped the floors.
We all want our children to do well in school and in life, but how do you ignite that spark that fuels a need for knowledge. How does your child develop an interest in the world around them?
A decreased ability to concentrate, confused thoughts, motivation low, increased irritability, grumbling, quarrelsome, overly sensitive to criticism, anxious or depressed. This may sound like a typical teenager but they are also signs a coach watches for in athletes.
Long ago Blood-eater was a dragon who lived on an island that was surrounded by monsters and volcanoes that spewed out lava. Blood-eater was a green villain who sucked blood from superheros. He saw police on his island and got scared but he remembered he could suck blood out of the police. Then the police shot the bullets that makes dragons good and he hugged the police. Blood-eater went back home to his island of monsters and waited until the good bullets wore off.
One night Snowy the chimp squeezed through the bars of the metal of his cage at the zoo. He felt happy because he escaped. As soon as he got to the forest he was climbing up trees very high so he could eat fruit. He made his house at the top of the trees. Snowy the chimp lived in the forest for the rest of his life.
XtraMile Tuition Strategies (North Brisbane) - 0415 049461 