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Teach the Way Children Learn:
Students' Learning Styles
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Children acquire knowledge and process information in many different ways. Use activities that engage a variety of the six styles presented here so that you can effectively connect with your students and teach Biblical truths to them. |
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 Auditory Learners
...use their voices and ears to learn. They like to listen, discuss, repeat aloud, and sometimes sing. They have difficulty working on their own in silence for long periods of time.
Tips for Energizing:
- Include small group or whole class discussion time.
- Utilize music, playing it in the background.
- Use chants, call and response, oral presentations, and opportunities to repeat new information in their own words.
- Tell jokes, stories, and riddles; have your students tell some of their own.
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| Next learning style: Motion Learners |
 Motion Learners
...are stimulated to learn through motion and physical activity. They think more clearly and quickly when moving. Their minds may stagnate when forced to sit still for long periods of time.
Tips for Energizing:
- Actively involve the learners through pantomime, role-plays, simulations, games, and sports.
- Vary your learning settings: go out of doors, into hallways, or to the gym.
- Avoid long periods of sitting; allow students to stand, stretch, or walk around.
- If students must sit, allow them to quietly tap their feet or fingers without disturbing others.
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| Next learning style: Independent Learners |
 Independent Learners
...prefer and excel in situations where they can work alone. They tend to be aware of their own strengths, weaknesses, interests, and abilities, but often have difficulty expressing themselves verbally. They may resist group work.
Tips for Energizing:
- Give opportunities to set goals, work alone, and monitor their own progress.
- Include time for reflection and independent work projects.
- Offer choices in materials, types of projects, pace, and scope of work.
- Have students keep portfolios and evaluate their own work.
- Allow preparation time before presentations.
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| Next learning style: Visual Learners |
 Visual Learners
...depend on what they see to effectively learn. They tend to process information quickly through the gate of the eye. They may be slow to process what they hear until they write it in a visual format.
Tips for Energizing:
- Use visuals such as pictures, charts, storyboards, posters, word banks, and diagrams.
- Use images and color (motion or static images).
- Have students look for or create patterns, design things, or perform tasks that require spatial perception.
- Make their classroom orderly and appealing.
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| Next learning style: Hands-on Learners |
 Hands-on Learners
...remember best when they are actively involved and are able to touch things with their hands.
Working with their hands is very important to hands-on learners. Listening and watching without active involvement can produce boredom and fidgeting.
Tips for Energizing:
- Allow students to regularly work in three dimensions whenever possible (e.g. clay activities, handling objects, crafts, textures, etc.).
- Encourage the use of building with tools, boxes, blocks, etc.
- Encourage kids to draw, paint, and use forms of expression that involve the hands.
- If students are old enough, let them take notes as they learn.
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| Next learning style: Group Learners |
 Group Learners
...enjoy group interaction, discussions, and cooperation. They gain energy through contact with others. They may have difficulty sitting still or staying focused when working alone.
Tips for Energizing:
- Offer opportunities for collaboration, discussion, and group problem solving.
- Consider using joint projects or peer teaching.
- Make time for cooperative games.
- Structure times to empathize and identify with others' moods and feelings.
- Put these students in leadership roles when organizing games or for heading up projects.
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| Next: Identify your students' preferred learning styles |
To identify your students' preferred learning styles, ask:
- What types of stimuli tend to keep their attention?
- What situations prompt them to express themselves?
- What physical classroom arrangements help them work productively?
- What generates the most creativity among them?
- What style of presentation helps them remember?
- When does their attention drift from the task at hand?
- At what kinds of tasks do they excel?
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