VARKLearning Styles: What Your Student Needs and How to Support It

This world is experienced in different ways. This tends to influence how we learn and memorize things in school. Every teacher must understand their students’ learning needs to support them to achieve educational success.

Learning styles are a useful guide, and the best teachers should be able to adjust their teaching to fit the unique needs of their current class. If we don’t acknowledge these different learning styles, some students might lag behind their peers unnecessarily.

If some of your students find it hard to grasp concepts in class, then it’s time to identify their learning styles and adjust your teaching methods accordingly. Your teaching methods likely contrast or do not correspond to the students’ learning styles.

What are the four different learning styles, and how can you identify the right one for each student?

The VARK Learning Styles

There are 4 main learning styles, also known as VARK:

• Visual learning: Visual presentations, diagrams, doodles, coloring • Auditory learning: Sound cues, audio, discussions, reading out loud • Reading/Writing learning: Through written text, reading online, and writing journals • Kinesthetic learning: Learning through physical movement and tactile senses

Below, we shall examine how to identify your students’ learning styles and, more importantly, how to support them.

Visual Learning

How to identify visual learners: Visual learners love to use pictures, diagrams, and directions to understand information. Visual learners use sight to observe and make sense of things. They learn faster when information is presented visually. Students who doodle, make notes, and color text, are visual learners.

How to Support Visual Learners: Teachers should use visual presentations as much as possible to support visual learners. You should encourage students to doodle, draw diagrams, and prepare visual representations of their assignments. Make use of whiteboards and projectors as often as possible. Visual learners also need more time to process information that has been delivered through lectures.

Auditory Learning

How To Identify auditory learners: Auditory learners will prefer learning by listening and from sound cues. These learners tend to be the most vocal in class and are often happy to read out aloud. They also tend to repeat what the teacher says to commit it to memory. Auditory learners are good at verbal expression and are not afraid to speak up.

How to Support Auditory learners: Asking auditory learners questions gives them a chance to repeat taught concepts aloud. This will help them solidify their knowledge. Listening to audiotapes, recordings, and video learning aids will go a long way to capture the attention and interest of auditory learners. Allow learners to voice their opinions through group discussions and question and answer sessions with the rest of the class.

Reading and Writing Learning

How to Identify reading and to write learners: These learners love to express themselves through written notes and enjoy writing journals and diaries. They spend time reading articles encyclopedias and searching for information on the internet. It is useful to remember that visual learners also like to take notes but are different from reading and writing learners.

How to support reading and writing learners: The traditional educational system caters mostly to this type of learner. These learners find reading books and writing assignments natural and easily identify with traditional teaching methods. Luckily, this is how most educational systems work. However, it’s important to give these learners time to read independently and express their ideas on paper.

Kinesthetic Learning

How to identify Kinesthetic learners: Kinesthetic learners learn by doing or experiencing things. They are also known as tactile learners because they like to use their hands and the rest of their bodies as learning instruments. These students also tend to be good dancers or athletes and usually appear restless in class. They may find excuses to get out of their seats and have a habit of pacing around when in deep thought.

How to support kinesthetic learners: These learners are best supported by acting out scenes from books they have read and incorporating movement and physical cues into lessons. This is because kinesthetic learners use physical movement to understand abstract concepts.

Kinesthetic learners should also be encouraged to take up physical pursuits such as sports, acting, drama, and dancing because they have a gift for following directions with their bodies.

Let Every Student Maximize their Potential

Although each style is different, students may prefer a combination of one or more styles depending on the subject. Therefore, it is important to support your students even if they prefer more than one learning style.

There is no reason why students should fall behind simply because teachers do not appreciate their learning style. Your students can only achieve their full potential through teaching that respects and supports their learning style.

It may not be easy to balance the needs of all students, especially if you are handling large numbers of students in one class. However, students enjoy a diversity of learning methods, and using different styles can only enhance learning and stimulate interest in them.