Do you have a visual learner in your homeschool? Are you a visual learner yourself? That may make things easier for you as a teacher. However, I am not a visual learner at all. I learn best through auditory means which makes teaching a visual learner more challenging.
It took a while to realize that I had a visual spatial learner, once I realized it though, I read everything I could on VSLs. Turns out my hubby is one too.
I really had to change my way of thinking because I’d explain thing over and over again but because I wasn’t showing him how to do things, it was becoming frustrating for M1.
The best thing that worked for us has been working everything out on the white board. I don’t know why, but writing things out with a pencil and paper seem too strenuous or boring, so we now do all our math on the white board.
Recommended Books for Visual Learners
Visual spatial learners and visual learners may learn differently than you, read what you can about them.
Visual-Spatial Learners: Understanding the Learning Style Preference of Bright But Disengaged StudentsSmart but Scattered: The RevolutionaryPicture It!: Teaching Visual-Spatial LearnersUpside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial LearnerUnicorns Are Real: A Right-Brained Approach to Learning (Creative Parenting/Creative Teaching Series)Raising a Left-Brain Child in a Right-Brain World: Strategies for Helping Bright, Quirky, Socially Awkward Children to Thrive at Home and at School
Tips for Teaching a Visual Learner
Some fun things to add to your homeschool:
- videos
- experiments
- graphic organizers
- notebooks
- lapbooks
- drawing
- pictures
- different color markers/crayons
- dioramas
We complete experiments first and then complete a lapbook minibook or narration page afterwards. M1 really gets a sense of the overall picture and then can easily break things down into more detail in his writing.
When your child has finished reading a book and you’d like them to complete a report on it, think again. Instead, have them create a diarama out of paper, cardboard, or even legos. Let them draw a picture rather than a 3 page report. Let them create a comic book to summarize the story. Have them create their own video using toys or animals or whatever they so please.
Don’t limit their work to paper and pencil. There are so many ways for them to record what they’ve learned.
Our favorites are lapbooks and notebooks, the information is stored in differently in their notebook, they remember pictures better than they do text.
Joe A. Madsen says
Oh, what joy we and our children know when they can spell, write, and read. Delight in learning to teach English like Abigail Adams taught John Quincy Adams, the 6th president of the United States.
When all four members of a student’s neurological TEAM are working together, the student is learning optimally. The TEAM is: Speaking, Hearing, Doing (kinestetic) and Seeing. We guide the teacher to guide the student to speak the words (wisdom) from the teacher. When he speaks and does, he just connected all four of his learning avenues to his brain. Speaking starts the process!
I suggest the teacher use all four members (TEAM) all the time to strengthen weaker members.
Linda says
I have visual learner and the white board has been wonderful. Sometimes we use it for spelling words, sometimes math, and sometimes just doodling while watching videos. I have noticed that writing with pen and paper seems harder for my daughter than using the white board. Because my daughter is a visual learner, I have found that our online curriculum, Time4Learning (www.time4learning.com) works wonders for her, she likes the colors, movement, and the ability to choose the pace at which she recieves the instruction. I can’t even imagine trying to teach my visual learner with workbook pages or lots of copy work. My daughter loves videos of any sort, and watches a lot of educational science programming. Thanks for brining this up!
admin says
My son loves the white board, we go through so many dry erase markers.