How to Determine Your Personal Learning Style

Learning styles are a combination of an individual’s preferred learning modality and learning type – or the way she physically processes and deals with information.

Learning modalities include:

• Visual – learning by seeing
• Auditory – learning by hearing
• Kinesthetic – learning by touching or doing

Learning types include:

• Concrete Sequential – organized, practical, orderly, and detailed
• Abstract Sequential – logical, rational, academic and argumentative
• Abstract Random – imaginative, flexible, interpretive and sensitive
• Concrete Random – daring, independent, intuitive and investigative

Every person – young or old – has a preferred learning style. Your learning style influences both the way you learn and the way you interact with other people. As an adult you have likely learned over the years to adapt your learning style to better facilitate personal interaction, communication, and instruction that are not provided in your preferred modality.

However, most children – especially young children – do not have the ability to adapt their learning style. This is problematic to academic success when information in the classroom is not presented in way which meets a student’s individual learning style. And, as a result, it’s not uncommon for this to be misinterpreted and for students who are struggling in the classroom to be inappropriately referred for special education services.

Especially for younger children, adapting your method of presentation to leverage their personal learning styles can often have dramatic results without the necessity for other intervention. Therefore, it is critical for educators to understand students’ individual learning styles as well as their own personal learning style in order to develop and maintain an environment conducive to the needs of students.

You might also be interested in...

• 3 Primary Learning Modalities Every Person Uses
• 4 Foundational Types of Learners

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