Homeschool World Forum

I think children tend to gravitate toward the style that suits them best. There may be times when they need a little guidance in how they can use their learning style, if they don't come up with something on their own. Someone who is 'hands-on' will choose hands-on activities to reinforce something they are learning or having trouble with. I believe learning styles are God-given and are wonderful to watch in action--especially when it helps them hit the bulls-eye.

I tend to think the foundation of the "three R's" is essential to learning- that being said one can learn to read and write and do math in various ways which reach out to the different styles.

Just because your top critical skill is auditory does not mean you cannot or should not learn to read well. A child of that mentality can still learn to read well and come to enjoy reading IF they are taught to read within their style. The problem, in my opinion, of forcing one into text learning by one path, is that they have found that children who have dyslexia did NOT have to have dyslexia. This is because learning styles have to do with the way each person's brain is geared. One cannot change that nor apparently mold that. However, Phonics can be taught to all learning styles. It is one thing the whole language people had right, the focus in reaching all styles so more children could be literate with out being put into "special" classes and then being tagged and having a disablitiy to boot. I guess that is something to consider here- by forcing children to learn the foundaton of learning one way- because they cannot change their brain's wiring- actually creates a disability where there need not have been one.

There are methods of teaching reading with phonics that use each of the critical thinking pathways. You don't have to teach just one part to one child and another to the next (and maybe get it wrong if you didn't evaluate the child's style correct). You use the complete program and it in a sense catches each child enabling them to become good readers regardless of their style. So though they may not "get" the visual aspect, because there is also auditory, etc. alongside of the first it opens the world of reading to all people of all styles. It is simple, but specific, so it does not cater to one type nor slow anyone down - which in my mind is the only concern of teaching strictly to a more unique style anyway.

Okay, I am rambling again.

Does everyone want to be a life long learner. I know I do but I live with one person, my father-in-law, Who never reads more than a newspaper or the TV guide. He is happy where he is and doesn't feel the need to have great reading comprehension. He is happy if he can fish and hunt. Not a lot of reading required.