The Kinaesthetic Learner

Kinaesthetic learners love to get up and move about; hands-on activities, such as painting, working with tools, tracing or keyboarding appeal to their learning style. Sitting in a chair all day reciting facts is definitely not the way to go for any student – but the kinaesthetic learner really suffers in that kind of atmosphere. Too often, classroom learning is auditory and visual and doesn’t provide enough opportunities for the kinaesthetic learner. Talk to the teacher about expanding opportunities for more active, interactive and relevant activities.

Here are some more ideas:-

• Find opportunities to go on field trips to introduce or provide additional reinforcement for new information. Suggest field trip ideas to your child’s teacher, but be sure to take your child on your own to museums (especially hands-on museums), concerts, the beach, historical sites, nature hikes and so on to further explore educational concepts that have been introduced in the classroom setting.
• Help your child
  use a combination of senses to learn and absorb new material. For example, when he’s tackling something new, encourage him to talk about it, write about it, listen to someone else talking about it, and employ a hands-on activity, whenever possible, to reinforce the concept.
• Whenever possible,
  relate learning to real-life experiences. Make the information relevant and applicable to what is happening in your child’s life. If your child is learning about maps at school, help him make a simple map of your neighbourhood or, for an older child, a detailed map of your town. If your child is working on a health or nutrition unit, get into the kitchen and cook together – you might try something simple and delicious like a fruit salad or a shake with fresh fruit, orange juice and yogurt.
• Use role-playing to approach new material and to review what has been learned. Take the key concepts in a lesson and find a way to organise them into a real-life situation that can be simulated in role-play.
• Encourage writing notes as much as possible. Keeping active with a pen or pencil reinforces kinaesthetic learners.
• Prepare material than can be manipulated. For example, put content on study cards and divide them into categories for recitation.
• When your child needs to make an oral presentation in class, provide opportunities to make real-life applications or do something relevant and active with the content. For example, if the presentation is on the culture of a particular country, you could include music, food or art as part of the activity. Encourage him to tell stories that bring the content to life.
• Let your kinaesthetic learner hopscotch, clap his hands, or snap his fingers while reciting or spelling words.
• Talk to your child’s teacher about how your child learns best. If possible, volunteer to help with hands-on projects in the classroom. Bring in a rock or a seashell collection during a science lesson, or your homemade drum collection for a music lesson. Many teachers will be happy to hear your suggestions. Some teachers, however, prefer kids to sit still and listen. If this is the case, do your best to convey your child’s needs.

This article is an excerpt from ‘The Secret Life of the Dyslexic Child’ by Robert Frank with Kathryn E Livingston, published by The Philip Lief Group. Dr Frank is an Educational Psychologist and Family Therapist whose own dyslexia was undiagnosed until graduate school. Kathryn E Livingston is a respected author who has been writing on parenting issues for more than 17 years.