Learning Style? What Learning Style?

The first step in supporting your child's learning style is figuring out what it is. We know, sounds like rocket science, but we'll break it down.

In general, people tend to have preferred methods for taking in information. You, for instance, may know that you will learn and retain information better if you see it in writing, while your best friend may be adamant that a new concept won't stick in her head until she's had a chance to experience or interact with it firsthand. If our example happened to be spot-on, you would likely be a verbal or linguistic learner (someone who prefers to interact with the written word), while your friend might be a kinesthetic learner (someone who needs to be hands-on).

Most of us can acquire knowledge in many different ways, but at the same time, we tend to have preferred methods of receiving data that generally work best for us.

Now, back to your child.

Determining Your Child's Learning Style

Take a look at our section on Learning Styles, and particularly the article that inventories a whole cornucopia of theories about how to delineate different learning styles, as well as ways to test yourself for them.

If you're feeling adventurous, dive into the numerous assessments you can use to determine how your child learns best. And hey—you may even consider taking a learning assessment yourself so that you and your child can discuss and explore your different styles together. What could be funner on a lazy and learning-focused afternoon?

Once you have an idea of how your child prefers to pick up information, you can help support his education by finding tools and resources that will help him acquire knowledge in the way he likes best. But don't worry—you don't have to research all of those tools and resources on your own. Shmoop's got you covered.

Many of the articles in that Learning Styles section we talked about discusses how to capitalize on those different learning styles, and they contain links to more information that will help you tailor information and activities to suit your child's needs.

But how exactly does it work?

A Quick Example

We'll just pick one off the top of our heads: Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. If you delve on into that one and discover that your child is particularly musical, you may want to do two things:

1. Encourage your child to further develop this natural intelligence by having her take music lessons, listen to tunes, or compose her own music. Plus, take her to musical performances and concerts, check out software or apps with musical applications, and the like.
    
2. Here's where it applies to the rest of school, too. Begin incorporating music—which is, in this case, a natural talent and possibly a passion as well—into other learning activities to make them more appealing.
    
   So, for example, the people who came up with the idea of singing the quadratic formula to the tune of "Pop goes the weasel"? Genius, we know. And those were totally people who had higher musical intelligence, and incorporated that strength into other areas of learning.

Is It All Just Pops and Weasels?

Like we said, that was just an example. And whether or not your child is on the quadratic formula just now (or is a music type, like our example kid), the same principle applies across the board. If it's art your kid goes for, bring more visual devices into essay writing. For an audio learner, find podcasts or recordings of information that has to be memorized.

There are tons of ideas already out there (we'll link to our Learning Styles section just once more), and you can find many more ways to encourage and incorporate your child's learning style into his everyday acquisition of knowledge as you explore. What matters is focusing in on those methods that match your child's learning preferences.

And that's the recipe for learning that's not only more effective for your child, but also (we're guessing) quite a bit more fun.