What do kinesthetic learners do

Kinesthetic and tactile learners are easily distracted by their environment. Their attention follows their hands. At school: Teach them to draw sketches or diagrams of what they are hearing in a lesson. Teach them to point to each problem. Encourage the child to find a spot with minimal distraction. Encourage them to use flashcards with information they are learning. TIP: use flashcards with strong visual cues.

Remember, kinesthetic and tactile children are also visual learners. At home : Create a cozy, private environment for your child to use as they do schoolwork. A strategy that works very well is creating a "study spot" that uses a screen to limit what the child can see in a room.

TIP: make a screen from a large cardboard box with one side and the bottom cut out. At school: Teach them to use deep breathing and relaxation techniques to help with focus. Break up their tasks into manageable segments. At home : Take a break from schoolwork or the activity.

Decide together the amount of time for rest and relaxation and let the child set the timer. Help them learn to organize their homework into individual tasks, put them in order of priority, and focus on just one at a time. Kinesthetic and tactile learners tend not to be auditory learners. Information they learn by body movements will be stored in their brains, help them focus, and remember what they learned.

At school: Incorporate movements and visuals into the lesson. For example, when teaching a sight word like "help" also show the body movement that will both mimic the shape and meaning of the word. TIP: visuals are powerful aids for these types of learners because anything that is embedded in a visual can be captured and stored in a memory in less than a second. At home : Your child's memory is not related to how many times you've told them to do something, despite how much we might wish this is true.

They learn by doing. Help them store words or facts by creating fun, repetitive movements or visual signals such as whiteboards with lists and images. Kinesthetic and tactile learners need manipulatives. Reading out loud is a kinesthetic activity, and learners have proven to process the materials they read more effectively when they do this. The English or Language Arts classroom is a great place for students to debate, create performances, act out stories, mime, do a gallery walk to explore the poetry and artwork of others, play Scrabble and even enjoy an afternoon of Shakespeare in the Park.

Learning in stations can be an effective strategy for classrooms of all subject areas. To do this, the teacher prepares stations of learning in various different locations around the classroom.

Each station has the instructions and the required materials for the activity. Students complete the activity at one station and then get up and move to another station to complete the next activity. While learning to focus in a quiet way is undoubtedly a useful skill, it's important to allow students to remain active during some lessons to optimize learning. Adapted from: Laskey, Marcia L. Gibson, College Study Strategies.

Allyn and Bacon, Boston, As you watch children grow and learn, it quickly becomes obvious that each child has their own way of learning and interacting with the world around them. One child may spend hours curled up with a book, while another uses any excuse to go outside. In the early s, developmental psychologist and educational researcher Howard Gardner verified what many parents intuitively know: different children learn in different ways. He asserted that different people approach learning in different ways and that children learn better in school when their individual learning styles are recognized and supported.

He outlined seven different learning styles: auditory, visual, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic and logical-mathematical. Education has traditionally been focused around linguistic and logical-mathematical learning styles, however student centered learning models such as the Montessori method and the International Baccalaureate program have found success helping children learn in the way that is best for them. Auditory learners learn best through their sense of hearing.

They can even better retain knowledge when new ideas are paired with nonverbal sounds such as music, drum beats or clapping. Children who are auditory learners often love music and can remember the words to songs they hear. They would much rather have someone read a story to them than read it to themselves. If you think you have an auditory learner on your hands, encourage your child to say things out loud. For example, a mini spelling bee can help your child practice spelling words by saying the letters rather than writing them out.

You can also help your child practice reading by getting some books on tape and encouraging them to read along with the spoken words of the story.

If your child has a lesson to learn, try recording them reading the lesson out loud and give them the audio to listen to later.