learner

   Different children learn in different ways, using their sense of sight, hearing, or touch to master new information. Considering this, education experts have identified three main types of learners — physical, visual, and auditory.

   Physical learners (also known as "tactual-kinesthetic learners" --"tactual" for touch, "kinesthetic" for movement) discover the world best when they're using their hands or bodies. While many physical learners are both tactual and kinesthetic, some are decidedly one or the other. If your child prefers to feel things in his hands, he's primarily tactual. These are the kids who enjoy hands-on activities, such as cutting construction paper to make collages and fiddling with beads and other objects when learning how to count.

   If your child learns best by immersing himself in a physical activity, he's kinesthetic. These kids like to move and get their whole body involved in activities. Your child is probably kinesthetic if he is very expressive, he likes to act out stories with his whole body, wiggle, dance, and move his arms or if he jumps around a lot even while listening to you.

   If your child is a visual learner, you've probably noticed that he has keen powers of observation: He watches your lips move as you speak or pays close attention to what you do when you're demonstrating something.   That's because visual learners rely primarily on their sense of sight to take in information, understand it, and remember it. If they don't "see" it, they're not able to fully comprehend it.

   Auditory learners understand new ideas and concepts best when they hear the information. If you peek into a classroom, they're the ones who learn a tune in a snap just from hearing their teacher sing it, or who can follow directions to the letter after being told only once or twice what to do. Other auditory learners concentrate better at a task when they have music or white noise in the background, or retain new information more accurately when they talk it out.

   Knowing how your child learns and processes information is an invaluable tool that you can use to help him/her do better in school and develop a love of learning.

(*The above information was taken from three articles (The Auditory Learner, The Visual Learner, and The Physical Learner) written by S. Jhoanna Robledo. To read the articles in their entireity and/or to find out what type of learner your child is, please visit http://parentcenter.babycenter.com/calculators/learningstyle/?_requestid=418558)