Understanding our children's preferred learning styles can help us to establish learning environments that foster readiness and produce more effective learning.

The term leaning style has been described in various ways as follows:

 •  A learning style is based on biological, emotional, sociological, physiological, and psychological characteristics.

 •  A learning style is everything that controls how we take in, concentrate on, understand, process, store, remember, and use new information.

 •  A learning style is the combination of preferences that a student has for ways of thinking, learning tools, relating to others, or various learning experiences.

 •  A learning style is one's natural learning strengths, individual gifts, and bents.

 •  A learning style is the way each child perceives the world differently.

In summery, a child's learning style develops from different factors and represents his most natural style of learning.

Information processing styles refer to the way in which the child concentrates, absorbs, and retains information.

 •  Analytic Learners prefer details; step-by-step approaches; fact-by-fact modes; focused approaches; consistency; and logical, objective, and organized presentations of facts.

 •  Global Learners prefer seeing the broad view (the big picture), using intuition, seeing the interrelationships between things, doing group activities, and completing multiple tasks.

Perceptual ability is the method we use to take in information to observe our world.  Perceptual characteristic is an important learning-style factor.

 •  Auditory individuals learn as a result of hearing, verbalizing, and listening.

 •  Visual children input information by reading, seeing, and watching.

 •  Tactual learners acquire knowledge using feeling, touching, handling, or manipulation.

 •  Kinesthetic learning comes by motion, experience, and involvement.

A third learning style model deals with the processes of knowing or cognitive abilities.

The Perceptual Process deals with the way we view our environment.

 •  Concrete Learners record information received from their senses of sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing.  They view things in a tangible, factual, and literal way.

 •  Abstract Learners prefer studying relationships and unseen ideas.  They use intuition and imagination.

After being perceived, new information is processed, understood, used, and stored in one of two ordering styles.

 •  Sequential Learners organize information in a step-by-step manner.  They like logical and linear thinking.

 •  Random Learners are spontaneous.

The relationship between the perceptual and the ordering abilities results in four combinations:

 •  Concrete/Sequential

 •  Abstract/Sequential

 •  Concrete/Random

 •  Abstract/Random

A fourth learning model deals with multiple kinds of intelligence.  At least seven have been identified.  They describe an individual's areas of strength.

 •  Linguistic

 •  Spatial

 •  Musical

 •  Bodily/Kinesthetic

 •  Logical/Mathematical

 •  Interpersonal

 •  Intrapersonal

Four additional learning factors are related to the learner's needs in four areas.

 •  The Learning Environment produces effects on the learner by changes in sound, light, temperature, and setting.

 •  Emotional Preferences include the child's motivation, persistence, focusing, responsibility, conformity, independence, and response to structure.

 •  Social Needs reflect the child's desire to be alone, with a peer, in a group, or with an adult.

 •  Physiological Needs are comprised of food needs, the need to move around, and the best time of day to work.

Every child is a totally unique creation, relating to information in the world around him in a different way.

I have found that recognizing, understanding, and accommodating each child's unique learning style makes a huge difference in the child's attitude toward learning and how much knowledge he is able to absorb and retain.

Many models have been used to define different learning styles based on generalized personality types.  All of these are helpful, but none are exhaustive, since there are literally billions of personalities on the earth today, each somewhat different than all the others.

One model involves recognizing which of the five senses a child relates to best.  This is probably one of the first personality factors you are likely to recognize in your children.  Each of our five babies showed clear differences in the way he related to the world around him.

Joshua was a visual baby.  He had to have interesting things going on that he could see or he became fussy.  He hated to be placed face down on a blanket on the floor.  He hated the sling-type baby carrier, because he could not see well from inside it.

Josh grew into a visual learner.  For him, to see is to understand.  He enjoys reading and loves to learn from maps, graphs, charts, and diagrams, which he memorizes readily from sight.

Justin was an auditory baby.  It really did not seem to matter what he could or could not see.  The important thing was whether he could hear my voice.

The sling-type baby carrier which Josh had so vehemently rejected did not seem to bother Justin as long as he could hear interesting sounds around him.

In the early grades, Justin liked to learn through stories and conversation.  I taught him arithmetic using story problems.

Judah is a kinesthetic learner.  He learns best by doing, touching, feeling, and experiencing.  As a baby, Judah was constantly in motion.

Kinesthetics can be a major challenge to teach, as books just aren't their thing – at least not until later on down the road.

Judah has a short attention span and finds it hard to sit still for very long.

If you have a child with kinesthetic tendencies, do not automatically assume that he is hyperactive or ADD.

It is a mistake to fail to train a kinesthetic child in character like any other child.  Kinesthetic children need extra time and patience, because it is challenging for them to learn to control their impulses.

But kinesthetic learners can learn self-control waiting their turn to speak, lengthening their attention span (gradually), and learning to sit still when necessary.

I planned Judah's courses to include extra physical activities such as nature walks and hands-on experiences in science, period crafts in history, all kinds of manipulatives in math, and plastic letters in language arts.

I also used a large number of library books, since the full-color illustrations held Judah's attention and helped him concentrate on what I was saying.

At first Judah could pay attention for only about 15 minutes at a time, so I presented factual material through picture books for that long and followed the lesson with an additional 10 to 15 minutes of feedback on his part in the form of retelling what he had learned or drawing it on paper.

Jennaya is socially oriented.  She enjoys school best when we are doing things together.  And she loves to do well to please those she is with and is accountable to, so she tries hard even when completing independent assignments in her room.

Jennaya is most motivated by a smile, a hug, or a smiley face on her paper.

The achievement-oriented personality loves to reach new goals for their own sake.  All I have to do to get Joshua to learn something is to express it as a goal, and he will not rest until he has met the challenge.  I have to be careful what I say.  If I suggest a challenge he is not ready for, he may get frustrated.

The achievement-oriented personality can be competitive, perfectionist, and self-critical.  These children readily learn independently and are motivated self-starters.

They don't naturally accept authority, but can be trained to (as all children should).  They love to be given goals to meet on their own initiative, but you still need to check up on them like any other child.

These children are also planners.  Josh likes his whole day all planned out as soon as he gets up and is especially frustrated by the need to be flexible and deal with unexpected changes in plans.

Josh now plans his entire week of schooling ahead of time and then brings it to me for approval.  This saves me a tremendous amount of time and is very satisfying to Joshua.

Josh is also a scientist-type personality.  This type can't stand open-ended assignments.  He likes a predictable world, where certain rules are always followed.  He enjoys answering factual questions and actually loves to memorize facts of all kinds, but shuns subjective questions which are "candy" to the creative-type learner.

Josh is both artistic and musical, and he likes to write stories.  Be he likes music to follow careful rules, his drawings are realistic, and he only likes to write about what could be proven as fact.

In contrast, Justin, the creative type, loves to explore new possibilities.  The creative type loves open-ended, subjective questions, including those which ask him to express his opinion or compare and contrast two different things or speculate as to why something might have occurred.

The creative learner loves to write, create, and tinker.  He tends to be an undisciplined daydreamer and may need help staying focused on assignments, especially those for which he must memorize facts.

Justin is most motivated to learn facts if I give him a how or why puzzle which requires the facts in order to solve it.

In choosing your curriculum, keep your child's individual personality in mind. We want to get to know our children's unique personalities, appreciate them, and teach difficult facts or concepts in the learning mode they relate to best.

Still, every child should be solidly trained in self-discipline and Christian character, and every child should be given facts to master, philosophical questions to answer, and hands-on activities to do. Every child needs a balanced education.

A wise teacher will strike a careful balance between accommodating her children's individual learning styles and, at the same time, shoring up their weak points and training each and every one in Christian character.

What a delight to have the opportunity to watch each one of our children blossom and grow through the years into a unique and very special person!

James and Joy Marie Dunlap offer resources for home educators at www.lighthome.net.