Understanding Your Kids’
Learning Styles
By Tanni Haas, Ph.D.
A
s your kids head back to school after the winter
break, one of your top priorities, as a parent, is
to help them with their homework. But how do
you best do that? To be sure they truly understand the
material, it’s useful to know how they learn. Researchers
have discovered that there are four major learning
styles: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic.
Below are brief descriptions of each learning style and
how you can tailor your homework help.
Visual Learners
How They Learn: Visual learners process new
information by seeing it. A sign that your kids might be
visual learners is that from a young age they lingered
over illustrations in books and other visual stimuli.
Another sign is that they love to draw or paint. At
school, visual learners often doodle when they listen
to the teacher. It helps them better understand and
remember the material.
22 | V O L U S I A parent M A G A Z I N E
How To Help With Homework: Have your kids create
visual representations of the material they’re supposed
to learn. This can be charts, diagrams, figures, maps,
and timelines. Other useful tools include color-coded
flashcards, sticky notes, and folders. If they have a hard
time understanding something, show them how it’s
done instead of telling them how to do it. Since visual
learners often get distracted from too many visual
stimuli, it’s important to keep their study space neat
and clutter-free.
Auditory Learners
How They Learn: Auditory learners process new
information by having it explained to them out loud
or by vocalizing it themselves. A sign that your kids
might be auditory learners is that they “read” books
out loud to themselves, even before they learned to
read properly. Another sign is that they love listening
to music and singing. At school, auditory learners often
hum when they do their work.