Each child is unique and learns in different ways. Explore three different styles of learning in this series of articles as we seek to understand the best ways of nurturing each child’s love of learning.
Learning has often been described as a journey — something that takes time, requires effort and presents challenges to the traveller. While these notions are not untrue, it is perhaps more important to look at learning as a multifaceted object. If we consider the range of personalities among children, surely it is logical to look at each child’s learning profile as being unique as well.
In this series, we explore three major learning styles. With a multitude of educational psychology theories on learning types, it can be easy to ‘diagnose’ a child by tying them to one specific learning style. However, to avoid over simplification, you should encourage the different learning sensibilities in your child to maximise his or her learning potential and output.
Visual learners are motivated by what they see and may show a tendency to recall what they see rather than what they hear. With such learners, verbal instructions may not work as well as written instructions on a paper or a board. Another helpful tip is to furnish visual learners with information about the overarching goal of a specific task prior to embarking on a specific task.
Listening to Instructions
In the classroom, visual learners may not seem to catch on as quickly to the teacher’s instructions as other classmates. This has nothing to do with the ability to comprehend information. Hence, by taking notes as the teacher speaks, your child can have a visual aid to refer to at his or her own convenience.
Presenting Answers
Visual learners may not always take the conventional routes to deriving an answer or solution to a question — this is a mark of their creative problem-solving nature. While your child may not write down a set of sequential steps when answering a mathematical word problem in math, he or she definitely knows the content well — and that is perhaps more than half the battle won. By explaining to your child that others simply need to see a step-by-step explanation, he or she will be able to pen the relevant working for math problems, thereby ensuring that maximum marks are awarded.
Analysing Text
Examinations and tests often appear in fixed formats with walls of texts and few, if any, diagrams and charts. Encourage your child to draw boxes around key words or to draw arrows between parts of the text when sourcing for answers. By doing so, they are creating visual cues to process information quickly and accurately.
Your child deserves to be in an environment that encourages learning that works for him or her. At The Learning Lab visual learners benefit from:
- the use of board work to provide a visual representation of classroom instructions, explanations of concepts and clarification
of ideas in order to capture the attention of your child
- class discussions and peer reviews, which result in diagrams, mind maps and flowcharts better penned on our boards in class
When it comes to our specially designed materials, curriculum specialists have taken visual learners into consideration, ensuring adequate margins for note-taking, diagrams to make information digestible and appropriate amounts of white space to draw your child’s attention to pertinent text. Here are some ways your visual learners can benefit:
- Primary English lessons feature composition writing planning documents in the form of mind maps and story curves — visual cues that simplify the planning process while ensuring detailed plots
- Primary Math lessons place an emphasis on model drawing, analysis of graphs, charts and other diagrams — perfect for visual learners
- Primary Science lessons use diagrams, drawings, flow charts and diagrams as a staple of data representation, allowing visual learners to acquire and retain knowledge efficiently
If you think your child is a visual learner, leave a comment and share with us about how you’ve encouraged their learning!
Enrol your child in one of our core programmes and give your visual learner the opportunity to love learning today.
The Learning Lab is now at 8 locations. Find a location that suits your needs.
If you have any enquiries about our programmes, please email us at enquiry@thelearninglab.com.sg or call us at 6733 8711 and we will be happy to assist you.
(+65) 6733 8711
enquiry@thelearninglab.com.sg
