If you have experienced homework battles, they could possibly be caused by the difference of learning and thinking styles between you and your child. Without knowing it, you may be employing your learning and thinking style with your child both in how to tackle homework and how to study. One learning and thinking style is not better than another. It is important to use strategies that match a person’s learning and thinking style. Keeping in mind your own and your child’s learning and thinking style can help to avoid miscommunication and conflicts during homework time.
Learning styles are simply different approaches or ways of learning.
- Visual Learners (Visual Spatial Intelligence – “Picture Smart”): learn through seeing.
- Auditory (Verbal Learners - “Word Smart”): learn through listening.
- Tactile/Kinesthetic Learners (“Body Smart”): learn through, moving, doing and touching.
A thinking style is the way in which one concentrates, processes, and retains difficult information. Most people learn in one of the two ways—analytically or globally.
- Global learners need to understand concepts before they start concentrating on the details. Endless facts tend to bore them and they lose interest fast.
- Analytic learners follow a more conventional pattern. They prefer to concentrate on a series of facts that move toward a gradual understanding of an overall concept. Having information introduced in a step-by-step approach enables children with analytic styles to learn best.
