Children have the primal urge to learn and discover the world around them. Curiosity significantly controls the actions of a child during their learning and growing years. Children use smell, touch, broken speech and gestures to understand the world around them and to communicate with the adults. It is rightly said “The future belongs to the curious. The ones, who are not afraid to try it, explore it, poke at it, question it, and turn it inside out.” This statement holds very true for children, and during the process of exploring, a child develops a pattern that is unique to their learning style. This learning style helps them to understand, learn and absorb the most from their environment, parents and teachers.

According to research, there are three prominent learning patterns:  Auditory, Visual & Kinesthetic. Initially, children show a balance between the three styles, but gradually they become more inclined towards one pattern that allows them to excel.  As a parent and teacher, it is important to know a child’s primary learning pattern in order to help the child excel. Let’s look at the three styles and understand them better:

Auditory learners are good listeners. They usually show an aptitude for music. You will often find them humming and create tunes by themselves. They understand oral instructions very well. They will not have a problem remembering directions when told orally. They enjoy the audio aspects of nature, like the sound of rain and recognising animals through the sounds they make. They easily remember difficult dialogues from movies or complex song lyrics from a song. They have an edge for learning new languages. If your child easily creates rhymes and remember songs, they have a strong auditory learning system. 

Visual learners are observers of the world. They love art, enjoy reading books and tend to lean towards images and audio-video mediums. They also like to spend time to dig deep into an illustration, painting or image. They like symmetrical patterns and bright colours. They have a vivid imagination and they retain information from videos and television. They also enjoy watching movies. If you have noticed that your child can easily remember and recognise people, faces, places and images and they tend to lean towards arts, then they have a visually strong learning system. 

Kinaesthetic learners are all about movement. They learn by doing chores, feeling, touching and participating. Gestures help them to understand answers and claps help them to learn songs. They are usually good at sports, dancing, and physical activities. They tend to have strong hand-eye coordination. As babies, they show very active behaviour like early signs of walking and running. They are fidgety and cannot sit in one place. If your child shows interest in clay-modelling, building blocks, puzzles and models they have a kinaesthetically strong learning system.  It’s important to recognise learning patterns early and mould studies according to the pattern for children so that they enjoy learning. You may follow the simple tips to identify your wards primary learning style.

Day 1 – Select any random 10-30 words and write them down neatly along with their respective meanings and images. Give the list to your child and ask them to learn the words without speaking out or making any gestures, they can only use their eyes. At the end of the day, ask them to write down the words they can remember. 

Day 2 – Create a similar list with a different set of words, but this time, you have to read out the words to your child. The child can neither see nor read the words themselves. Read out the words a few times, without making gestures. At the end of the day, ask your child to write down the words they can recall. 

Day 3 – Give your child a new set of words, and ask them to learn the words by speaking out loud and by making gestures. They can do this a few times till they have memorised the words. At the end of the day, ask your child to write down all the words they can recall.

You will notice that your child will perform better in one or two of these styles than the other. The style in which it was easiest for them to remember and recall is their primary learning style. Students may find it useful to discover their preferences and then use this information to hone their study routines. Visual learners, for example, might benefit from creating symbols, graphs, and other visual information while studying the material in question. Learning style inventories remain a popular classroom tool to provide better educational outcomes. A number of studies have found that students taught according to their identified learning style do better.