Use Learning Styles to
Accelerate Learning

FREE Lesson Plans and Activities!

When your homeschool curriculum utilizes these pathways the results are amazing!

You may be familiar with the terms visual, auditory and kinesthetic. These are revealing only part of the puzzle.

I say puzzle because until you know your child’s natural learning abilities, learning can be a puzzling experience!

To get the whole picture you must include Dispositions, Modalities, Talents, Interests, and Environment.

Disposition Is The Most Obvious Element

"Oh, she's such a drama queen!"
"His head is always in the clouds!"

Sound familiar? These statements are describing different dispositions. Working with your child's disposition lays the foundation for cooperation (even beyond the books!) Consider these examples…

Example 1 - Paula the Performer gives an Oscar winning "performance" (i.e. tantrum) when asked to finish her multiplication drill sheet.

Example 2 - Paula the Performer dances around the living room while repeating multiplication facts. (This was her idea of course.)

See how working with the disposition accomplishes more with less effort?

Modality Describes The Preferred Method For Information Processing

This is the most familiar element of the learning puzzle. Modality is usually described as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. This is only part of the story.

There are distinctions within each category that make the difference between a child struggling or succeeding.

Let's take a look at the visual modality. Big Sister learned to read easily with the workbook phonics program and rarely misses a question in her math workbook.

Little Sister is struggling through the same phonics program and refuses to use the math workbook. Both girls scored as having visual learning styles on the free online learning styles test. What's going on???

The Big Sister is a visual-print learner and the Little Sister is a visual-picture learner. Even though they are both visual in nature, the same type of visual curriculum will not work for them.

Little Sister would succeed using a phonics computer program and a manipulative rich math program. Take the Online Learning Styles Profile to find out what type of Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic learner your child is.

Talents Are Natural Abilities Which Contribute Greatly To Learning

Learning comes more easily when done within the context of talents. Do you have a constant "doodler" in the family? How about a math whiz? Any animal lovers in the house?

Allow the doodler to draw a scene from her silent reading assignment. Have the math whiz find the math patterns in a multiplication table. Use animal science topics when learning biology.

Support your child's talents and they will have more confidence when it comes time to tackle those subjects they find more challenging.

Interests Are Areas For Discovery

When your child is engaged their interests they are focused and enthusiastic. Much learning is taking place!

I call these "freebies" because I didn't have to initiate the learning experience (or pay for a curriculum to initiate the learning experience).

Say your son loves to ride his bike. Find local trails to ride. Pack along nature guides, rock guides and a picnic! Free biology lesson! Incorporating interests in your curriculum allows your child a break from more rigorous subjects.

Utilizing interests is also a great way to breath life into a dry or low motivation subject (biology perhaps?). And remember…freebies!

The Right Environment Improves Concentration And Learning

Does your child shush the family when she's reading? Is the radio blaring when your son is hard at work on his history report?

These are clues to your child's best learning environment. As a homeschooler you can take advantage of this important aspect of your child's learning style.

Environment is more than just where your child chooses to read War and Peace. It includes sound, body position, interaction, lighting, temperature, food, color, and scheduling. Whew, that was a mouthful!

3 Steps To Homeschooling Success

1. Take the online Learning Styles Profile to find out your child's natural learning abilities.
2. Customize your homeschool curriculum package.
3. Choose a homeschooling method that works best with your child's learning style. Then plug your curriculum resources into the course of study for your homeschooling method.