Learning Styles in Homeschool

Happy Friday! Heart of the Matter hosts a meme every Friday for homeschool moms and this week, the topic of choice is:

Your Children's Learning Styles.

We discussed curriculum and would love to hear how these choices best teach your children according to their specific learning styles. Are they visual learners? Auditory? Kinesthetic? Give us your best teaching methods!

All of my kids learning styles are so very different. It is amazing how kids from the same parents can all be so unique. It is evidence of God’s creativity and sovereignty. It also confirms that putting kids in a box and expecting them all to go in the same and come out the same is a ridiculous notion. My son learns so much from reading and doing. He absorbs so much information when he reads it blows me away. I have to read something twice before any of the information is absorbed. He is also a kinesthetic learner. If I give him something to do with his hands, he learns it quickly. We use a lot of manipulatives with him. He is allergic to the pencil and writing. I cannot expect him to write out the answers to review questions at the end of a chapter. If I ask him to tell me, he can practically quote everything he read.

My daughter does not learn from reading. She learns from watching and doing. If I read something to her, she will not remember anything. If we watch something, she will remember better. She struggles in remembering so I have to follow up on all lessons with an activity she can do in order for her to remember anything. Lapbooks and a modified form of notebooking work really well with her. She pays attention better while she is doodling. And she thinks abstractly. When she was learning how to count, she would group her numbers in 3s. She is only 8 and the other day I taught her how solve for “x” with all the algebraic steps. And she completely understood it. Teaching her has taught me so much about how differently people think.

My younger daughter is your typical in the box thinker. She would do well in a box school academically. She loves worksheets and busy work. I do not know why, but she thinks it is fun. So for her, I teach the way she would be taught in a classroom. I do this because this is how she learns best.

All of them love unit studies and learning how all things connect. I love teaching them how everything is interrelated and how God’s hand is on everything.
Teaching my kids using their learning style and not making them try to learn in a box has allowed them to excel in ways that they never would be able to otherwise. Even my younger daughter, who learns traditionally, is better off at home. She is so quick in her work she would be so bored waiting for the other kids to catch up. So she can learn at her own speed and move on when she understands something.