Identifying Your Child's Preferred Learning Style, exploring VARK

Nov 22, 20247 min read

Updated: Dec 28, 2024

Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on resources and support. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook

learning styles and homeschool curriculum

I have three different children. Each one has their own attitude, interests, strengths, and personalities. One child loves drawing, the other prefers building or constructing with blocks and craft supplies. They have their own attitudes and flair towards their work. One is much better at independently completing work, while the other needs more reminders and checklists.

This being said my children each receive information differently, and so there is not a one size fits all curriculum. Now bring in our neurospicey dynamics, and let's just say that we also go through our struggles with homeschool. It's a learning curve for all of us though, and luckily homeschool comes with room for grace.

What I have learned and what has helped me work through the homeschool overwhelm, burn-out, and nagging to complete work is --- Observe them for their preferred learning styles.

This is not as simple as it may sound, but not complicated to accomplish, either.

Children are people with emotions, dominant learning preferences, varying developmental milestones and dispositions. Weird... who would have thought to approach teaching your little one as a WHOLE person, and not just a tiny sponge that absorbs everything you throw at it. (being facetious)

In this article, I am sharing personal experience, survival stories and recommendations that I hope will be helpful to other homeschooling families on their journey.

Knowing your child's dominant learning style is CRUCIAL to successful homeschooling and learning. If your kids have been overwhelmed, frustrated, resistant to homeschooling, or refusing to finish their assignments, you may be approaching it in a way that they cannot connect with.

The beauty of homeschool is that you can modify and approach lessons in a number of different ways, to meet the way each child learns best.

What are Learning Styles?

Learning styles are how we take in new information.

Just like our brains are different, our personalities unique, interests different, and communication is different, the ways we learn are all unique. If you have more than one child, you have probably identified by now most of these differences. You're not alone if this was frustrating at first, with trying to teach them information the same way and not succeeding.

Why are Learning Styles important?

Do you have those moments where you think your child "just isn't getting it?"

It could be because you need to re-evaluate and approach it in a different way.

It is important to understand how your child learns, to promote their best success from lessons. It also helps to understand that when a child is struggling to learn, it is not necessarily a discipline problem. It is very likely that it is a genuine struggle for them and they don't know how to tell you what they need.

It is only human to feel frustrated with a child who whines, avoids, makes excuses for, and disappears during certain homeschool tasks. However, learning their learning styles and needs can greatly improve everyone's frustration and improve your relationship.

They are useful in identifying approaches and methods to help engage your child best. They are not the only influence on learning, however. Researchers have stated that while learning style categories are important, the teaching methods, relationships, environment, health, learning aptitude and abilities, can also weigh heavily on their success.

"Students are different; not dumb." - Neil Fleming

Are Learning Styles a Label or Diagnosis for my child?

Learning styles are only models or ways of categories that highlight similar styles of learning.

People typically learn in a variety of ways, but identifying their dominant preferred style is a helpful way to help your kids learn to their best ability. It does not label and it does not diagnose someone as having a learning disability.

Learning style models represent one of many factors that determine a child's success with learning. Other important factors to be mindful of include, teaching methods, environment, health, aptitude, interests, and relationships.

How many learning style models are there and which do I use?

There are more than seventy models available to help explore your child's preferred learning style.

Some of the most popular that have helped us, include:

1- VARK model

A learning style model that highlights strategies that help individual people learn new information. Through visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic/tactile methods, people tend to have a more dominant way to retain new information.

2- Gregorc Mind Model

A learning style model that explains the importance of how we perceive, process, and organize information. Dr. Gregorc theorizes that perceptual ability and ordering ability greatly impact how we order learning.

3- Willis and Hodson's Model

According to Willis and Hodson, there are five ways to influence learning. These are dispositions, talents, interests, modalities, and environment.

4- Dunn and Dunn Learning Style

This model emphasizes the importance of the conditions necessary to promote learning. Dunn and Dunn identify five areas of learning that affect how they learn. These are environmental, emotional, sociological, physiological, and psychological preferences.

For this article we are exploring the VARK model. I have other articles that explore the other 3 models as well.

homeschool curriculums learning preference

VARK Learning Style Model

Visual/Auditory/Kinesthetic/Reading& Writing

This model is fairly well known, that describes a variety of student experiences. It was developed by Neil Fleming and Charles Bronwell, after researching learning successes in high school and college classrooms. Their research showed that the teacher's quality and student aptitude/intelligence did not match the outcomes that were expected. The missing link to success was their optimal learning strategy, paired with teacher quality and aptitude.

The four categories of learning strategies shown to be greatly impactful on student success were, Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Reading & Writing.

Visual-

People that prefer visual learning strategies, like symbols, graphical representations of material, and like to take notes. They have a vivid memory of things that they saw, and can picture in their head things they learned.

They tend to be less organized than neat and clean. When bored, they enjoy finding something to watch. They can be easily distracted by sounds and have difficulty remembering spoken instructions.

Common behaviors by visual learning kiddos:

Drawing pictures on worksheets and to take notes

Plans essays with charts or symbols

Likes to use Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast data

Like to color code things

Activities that Visual Learners may not prefer:

Memorizing words

Talking about what they learned

Writing essays

Reading more than minimally required

Auditory-

These learners really enjoy listening to new information and talking about new information. They tend to be very talkative in general. They store information and remember things best by how it sounds, and understand spoken instructions better than written ones.

Auditory learners often hum or talk to themselves and others when bored. They also have a tendency to be listening, even when they appear to not be paying attention.

Common behaviors seen in auditory learners:

Read stories and instructions out loud

Study new material by reading it out loud

Enjoy audio books

Does well in online classes with live participation

Enjoys classes with discussion or debates

Activities that Auditory Learners may not prefer:

Taking online classes without participation

Studying quietly in a library

Reading instructions or new information without hearing it

Kinesthetic/ Tactile-

These learners enjoy using their hands to learn new information. They enjoy touching, doing, physical movement, and anything hands-on. They tend to be very active and need frequent breaks. They can be very animated and use their hands and gestures when speaking.

Tactile learners have a tendency to take things apart and put them back together, and seek out reasons to tinker or move around when bored. Some may be very well coordinated with strong athletic ability. They can recall things that were done or tasks they completed, but have a hard time remembering what they saw or heard. They also tend to communicate via touch and appreciate physically expressed forms of encouragement.

Think sensory experiences. These learners explore their world through smell, touch, taste, hearing, and sight.

Common behaviors seen in kinesthetic/tactile learners:

Participate in activities that involve touching, building, creating, and moving

Tend to touch things, even when told not to

Likes to collect items

Learns best by playing, such as time games, money, science and science experiments

Enjoys reenacting battles

Trace words with their finger to learn spelling

Hold onto and fidget with something while learning

Type on a computer during call to reinforce the sense of touch

Activities that Kinesthetic learners may not prefer:

Reading about geography or science instead of doing activities with it

Sitting still while reading new information

Reading/Writing-

These learners are similar to visual, but specifically love learning by reading and writing about the topic. Unlike visual learners who prefer graphics and images, reading/writing learners specifically love reading.

Common behaviors seen in reading/writing learners:

Frequently read independently

Write more than required for a task

Prefer to read the instructions for an assignment, instead of listening to the instructions

Like to make lists

Enjoys researching

Take notes while listening to a lecture

Activities that reading/writing learners may not prefer:

Conducting science experiments, instead of reading about them in a book

Creating mind maps or brainstorming activities before writing

Listening to audiobooks

It is common for children to be multimodal, meaning that they demonstrate characteristics of a couple of styles. Additionally, according to Fleming, children's preferred models change as they mature and grow.

It's important not to label or be married to the idea of one type of learning style.

I explore deeper in another article the Gregorc Mind model, Willis and Hodsons Model, and Dunn and Dunn learning style. These are important in they incorporate other aspects of a learner. I encourage you to read more and explore your little one, to reduce homeschool burn out and task avoidance.