A few months back I ran across a book on learning styles, The Way They Learn by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias. Basically she discusses several theories on different ways we learn and store new information.
I found the book interesting and fun to read. It was easy to pick out my styles and my husband's. Not so easy to pick out the kids' styles but they are still really young so that's understandable.
Lately, I've begun to think Will is a visual learning. By that I mean he learns by seeing things. Last night I had a lightbulb moment with him. He was cleaning up the playroom (one of his chores) and I was doing my nightly "Hurry Up. Stop Playing" song and dance. I asked him where we had seen a certain toy a couple minutes earlier. He said to me, "sometimes when I'm trying to remember something I have to close my eyes so I can see it."
WHOA! DING! DING! DING! We have a winner! No wonder I've been having such difficulties teaching him new tasks! I've been verbally teaching him each step. What he needs is for me to show him and have some flash cards with pictures of each step.
I'm planning to use my digital camera and take pictures of him doing various activities, print and laminate the pictures. Then maybe we both won't be so frustrated anymore. That would be a good thing for everybody!
4 comments:
It's beautiful to see someone so tuned in to their child.
I Love this book...I have three boys, 5, 3 and 1. While the one year old is still a little too young, it has helped me identify my other kids learning styles. And what a world of difference it makes! It revolutionalized my parenting.
If Jenn looks at this again, I'd love to know what changes you've made in your parenting as a result of knowing their learning styles.
Steph
Ethan is definitely a visual learner. That's hard for this very verbal mommy!!! Sometimes I feel like my arms are tied behind my back!! It's funny because I'd recently pulled this book out. I read it when I was in college...thinking about teaching...
Once I made a grocery list and used Google images to put a picture of each thing on my list and let Ethan help me while I was shopping. I included the words under the images for Caleb since he's learning to read. They really loved that shopping trip. I ran out of color ink soon after that so it didn't become a habit like I'd planned and I hadn't done that recently...need to try it again. I've taken pictures of Ethan brushing his teeth, going to bed, playing...all those things and am using my free pictures I've accumulated from Snapfish to develop those pics!!! Lamination is so expensive so I have to do that in stages...I like the THICK lamination that's durable enough to endure Connor's drool and the boys rough and tumble play. YOU know! :) (Ellie's birthday buddy's mommy)
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