- 1). Find out what the child does in her free time. If she likes to draw, paint or even watch movies and television, the child may be a visual learner. If she likes to listen to music, sing or tell stories, she may be an auditory learner. If she likes to dance, play sports or act things out, she may be a tactile learner.
- 2). Find out what frustrates the child, or what the child often complains about. Children who complain that others do not listen to them often have an auditory learning style, while those who complain that others to not look at them have a visual learning style. Children with a tactile learning style may claim that other children are insensitive, or may be frustrated by physical discomforts.
- 3). Use a questionnaire or learning assessment that asks questions about how the child focuses, communicates with others and relaxes, as well as questions about likes and dislikes, to get a more specific assessment of a child's learning styles in terms of auditory, visual and tactile learning preferences. A number of free online learning assessment options exist for anyone to use.
- 4). Use a questionnaire assessing hemispheric dominance to find out if a child prefers to learn with the left brain or the right brain. Left-brain learning tends to be more linear, sequential, symbolic, logical, verbal and based in reality, while right-brain learning tends to be more holistic, random, concrete, intuitive, nonverbal and based in fantasy.
- 5). Consider additional learning preference factors to develop a broader understanding of children's learning styles, such as whether a child likes to do tasks simultaneously or sequentially, whether a child likes to connect or compartmentalize information and ideas, whether a child likes to invent new objects or scenarios or reproduce what he learns and whether a child prefers two-dimensional or three-dimensional representations. While these factors may not indicate a specific auditory, visual or tactile preference or left- or right-brain dominance, they can provide you with additional information about how a child prefers to learn.
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