The Homeschool View
What is your Learning Style?
By Hunter Fell

December 9, 2010

So, how do you learn best? I ask because, as you may or may not know, there are three basic learning styles - kinesthetic (by touch), visual (by sight), and auditory (by hearing) - along with various combinations of these three; and knowing your learning style can greatly help your educational experience.

If you are a kinesthetic learner, then you like to be active in your learning process – hands-on. For example, let’s say you are learning about the Civil War; instead of just reading a biography or a text book, you would learn a great deal more by going to Gettysburg and walking around the battle fields, climbing Devil’s Den (a collection of giant boulders which one of the battles was fought at – and great site for a quick game of hide and seek), or building a model or diorama of whatever you are focusing on.

If you are an auditory learner, you need to hear things in order to comprehend best. So, that same Civil War study might make better sense through a lecture, reading a text out loud, or going to Gettysburg with a tour guide (FYI: I highly recommend the animated audio car tour!).
As you figure out which one style is your dominant way of learning, realize that most of us are a mixture of the three - I believe I am visual, then kinesthetic, then auditory – and combining these while learning, especially your dominant with kinesthetic, is the best way for everyone to learn!

Visual learners, like myself, need to see things in order to understand them. They may learn best about the Civil War by watching a movie (also works for auditory learners as long as it’s not on ‘mute’), a re-enactment done at Gettysburg, or just by reading a biography or text book for themselves (even better if pictures are included). Since I love to read and have an active imagination, I am able to picture things well in my head when not provided.
Now you may be wondering, “What does this have to do with homeschooling?” My answer is everything.

Tailoring schoolwork to fit learning styles, enabling us to learn the most in the easiest way possible, is something homeschoolers strive to do; however, even if you’re not homeschooled, you can profit from this by organizing how you study the schoolwork given to you. If you have to do a research paper or project, figure out your learning style and then use that angle to complete it.

Now that you have these helpful hints, you can learn from it or you can forget you ever read it (and if you’re an auditory learner, you just might … unless you read this article out loud). If you want more help figuring out your learning style, there are numerous books and quizzes dedicated to this interesting subject; and as always, if you have any questions/comments for me, email dillsburgbanner@dillsburgbanner.com, subject line “Homeschool View”.