My learning style

Learning Styles — The General Categories

Learning styles are ways of learning. A preferred learning style is the way in which a student learns best, which reflects the relative strengths or weaknesses of that student’s underling cognitive (learning) skills. Different scholars use different learning style categories. Multiple Intelligence (MI) theory maintains that there are at least seven learning styles (“intelligences”): interpersonal, intra-personal, body/kinesthetic, visual/spatial, logical/mathematical, verbal/linguistic, and musical/rhythmic (D. Lazear, 1991). Some academic organizations trim this list to a basic two: logical/mathematical and verbal/linguistic. For purposes of this article and in accordance with the majority of today’s educational literature, we’ll focus on the following simplified list of three learning styles: Auditory, Visual, and Tactile.

Learning Styles — A Simplified List

Auditory — A student with an auditory learning style learns best when information is delivered in auditory formats such as lectures, discussions, oral readings, audio recordings, or podcasts. Auditory learners do well in classroom settings where professor lectures and student discussions are the norm. These students also do well with taped courses and group study situations.

Visual — A student with a visual learning style learns best when information is presented in visual formats such as books, articles, web pages, images, videos, or diagrams. Visual learners do well with class handouts, power point presentations, movies, and chalkboards. These students take detailed notes, highlight their texts, and use flow charts for study aids.

Tactile — A student with a tactile learning style learns best when information is conveyed in “hands-on” settings such as trade positions, labs, workshops, or participatory classes. Tactile learners respond well to touching and creating things in areas such as art and science. These students want to hold and manipulate the subject matter, rather than merely viewing an image of it.

Learning Styles — The Importance of Cognitive Assessment

Learning styles should be discovered and encouraged. It’s the way we’re “wired” and we’re always more successful in life when we pursue our natural wiring. However, although learning styles are important, working within a student’s learning strengths too early may actually hinder the child’s overall success. If a child is encouraged to avoid areas of struggle, the underlying cognitive skills in that area will remain weak and that child may lose the opportunity to fully develop an array of learning tools. Regardless of whether they’ll ultimately favor the auditory, visual, or tactile styles, all students need a strong foundation in the core cognitive skills.

Cognitive skills are the fundamental tools that all people use to learn and achieve. Cognitive skills are not the learning style preferences such as auditory, visual or tactile, but rather, the underlying mental abilities required for long-term proficiency in core subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics. These foundational learning skills include auditory processing, visual processing, attention, memory, processing speed, logic and reasoning, and comprehension. All of these mental tools should be solid for learning success, but it’s the strongest of these underlying abilities that leads to a preference in learning styles.

At LearningRx, an assessment of basic cognitive skills is the first step towards discovering a student’s preferred learning style. A “Learning Styles Inventory” is an exciting part of our assessment process. If your child is struggling in an area of learning, we encourage you to learn more about our cognitive skills and learning styles assessments.

What's Your Learning Style? The Results

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Your Scores:

• Auditory: 30%
• Visual: 30%
• Tactile: 40%

You are a Tactile learner! Check out the information below, or view all of the learning styles.

Tactile

If you are a tactile learner, you learn by touching and doing. You understand and remember things through physical movement. You are a "hands-on" learner who prefers to touch, move, build, or draw what you learn, and you tend to learn better when some type of physical activity is involved. You need to be active and take frequent breaks, you often speak with your hands and with gestures, and you may have difficulty sitting still.

As a tactile learner, you like to take things apart and put things together, and you tend to find reasons to tinker or move around when you become bored. You may be very well coordinated and have good athletic ability. You can easily remember things that were done but may have difficulty remembering what you saw or heard in the process. You often communicate by touching, and you appreciate physically expressed forms of encouragement, such as a pat on the back.

Here are some things that tactile learners like you can do to learn better:

• Participate in activities that involve touching, building, moving, or drawing.
• Do lots of hands-on activities like completing art projects, taking walks, or acting out stories.
• It's OK to chew gum, walk around, or rock in a chair while reading or studying.
• Use flashcards and arrange them in groups to show relationships between ideas.
• Trace words with your finger to learn spelling (finger spelling).
• Take frequent breaks during reading or studying periods (frequent, but not long).
• It's OK to tap a pencil, shake your foot, or hold on to something while learning.
• Use a computer to reinforce learning through the sense of touch.

Remember that you learn best by doing, not just by reading, seeing, or hearing.

Reflection
Before I discover my learning style is tactile, I just study by swallowing the whole book down my throat. Now I should do more activities that stimulate my senses like touching and drawing. This would create vivid memory and I believe it could make my study more efficient.