Learning Styles

This week we at The Homeschool Village we are talking about learning styles.  So what are my boys learning styles and how do I handle them?

My oldest is almost completely auditory!At nine months of age (yes, 9 months!) he said his first words! By 18 months I was able to carry on a complete conversation with him on the phone.  This is very typical of kids that are highly auditory.  I just didn't know it at the time.  He is my challenge in homeschooling simply because his learning style is different from mine.  I am somewhat auditory, but I am way more visual.   From the beginning I have struggled to understand how to teach him and what works for him.  Anything done outloud is a piece of cake for him.  Ask him to pick up a pencil and his progress slows WAY down.  Last year we had him tested by a school psychologist.  Well, guess what we found out...he is higly gifted in auditory skills, but pencil and paper activities slow him down to the point that he struggles. Knowing this has given me compassion to deal with his slowness when he does have to write by hand.  It also has given me an appreciation for him...he is able to do things that I can't even begin to understand because of his auditory abilities.  We have always tried to modify some of his work so that it can be done auditorily.  But we do require that he puts pencil to paper.  He can't totally get away from it.  As the school psychologist said, "We all have to work on our weaknesses."

My youngest is like me in that he is visual.  I also think he might be a bit tactile, too.  Because his learning style is similar to mine, I have found it easy to homeschool him.  He is also highly motivated to work...something that I have been my whole life.  His biggest struggle is.....you guessed it....listening! So his weakness is his brother's strength.  His strength is his brother's weakness.  I believe this is no accident.  It is teaching my boys compassion for others who may struggle in a certain area.  It is showing them that we all have positives and negatives in our lives.   With my youngest we have really had to work on the nuances of the English language.  Because listening isn't his thing for the longest time he would use words like "goed" for "went" and "eated" for "ate".  He has basically overcome this, but we still work on having him focus on what people are saying. Because you know, we all have to work on our weaknesses!