Relief in Discovering my Son's Learning Style: Schoolhouse Review from PeopleKeys

 I received a paperback Cognitive Thinking Style Workbook from PeopleKeys for review.  This workbook is an assessment with questions intended to identify a student’s cognitive style of thinking and how he or she absorbs information.

It breaks it down into an acronym, LITE, and explains that you will shed some "LITE" on your thinking style:

L – literal
I – intuitive
T – Theoretical
E – Experiential

Even though the booklet is aimed more toward high school, college students or adults; I was very excited to have my son fill out the assessment, because this 13-year-old 8th grader is my biggest challenge in teaching. I am constantly revamping and reassessing my teaching style and his curriculum to make sure it meets his learning needs, and he is constantly throwing me for a loop and completely disinterested in almost any traditional learning.

 

The workbook sells for $13, or for $11.05 when you buy quantities of 25 or more in bulk (and believe me, after you have one child take this test, you will wish you had one workbook for each of your other children and you and your spouse as well).

The booklet is a paper folded staple binding and is 17-pages with all of the information you need included between the pages. The only other thing I needed to use the book was a pen for my son to fill in the questions.

I handed my son the booklet and a pen and asked him to fill it out. He read through the instructions and figured out what to do, and had the questionnaire completed in about 15 minutes. When I saw his results, both of us laughed because it was dead-on in describing my son and the way he thinks.

Of course, I was then very curious to discover tips on how to help him learn. We discovered that he is an Experiential style. Not surprisingly, this style is one that likes to:

challenge the teacher to try different approaches

Ah – Did that ever make me feel validated in all my frustrations in finding lessons to hold his interest over the years?



So, now the quest begins: 

After the student takes the assessment and scores the results, the next few pages are devoted to explaining the traits associated with each style. This was the part when both of us kept nodding our heads in agreement. He obviously answered the questions true to his personality which gave us accurate results.

This section is followed by a break down of how each specific style of learner can improve their learning experience. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t as excited to discover that it might benefit him to work on some areas to make his learning go smoother.

The last few pages are dedicated to more questions that summarize the entire exercise and really get the student thinking how to apply this information in his or her life, especially when it comes to learning.

I really liked this workbook assessment. I especially liked how once he was done answering the questions, he immediately tallied up his scores and charted a graph inside the workbook to get his results.  It did not require my sending it away and waiting for results.

My son and I found it easy to use and were amazed at how closely his results described him. I am excited, because some of my frustrations I have felt in trying to design curriculum around his learning style have been validated. I realize now that it is possibly just a difference in cognitive thinking. I love how it lists not only his strengths, and where his thinking excels, but also where he is limited, because I can now take this list of limitations and help him excel while not frustrating him by trying to make him fit into my cognitive thinking style.

Please read other PeopleKeys reviews from the Schoolhouse Review Crew, or click on the picture below:

How to Motivate a Child Who is Struggling with School

How do you motivate a child who is struggling with one subject in school? This is the question that was posed to me from Circle of Moms blog. I find it to be a very challenging and insightful question. However, I have come up with an answer that will, hopefully, help those experiencing this struggle.  Before you pull your hair out and scream in frustration, step back and observe, while you think:

1. Is this a new frustration, or has your child always struggled with this particular subject?
2. What is it about the subject that frustrates the child?
3. Consider the child's learning style.  Does he need to be moving while he learns?  Does he need to hear the topic being said out loud?  Does he need to see a more colorful presentation of the lessons?  Does he need some interaction - to touch and feel what he is learning?
4. Interject the child's learning style into teaching about the subject.
5. Be patient and willing to try and fail, over and over, before reaching a happy spot.
6. Offer a reward system when the child reaches certain milestones within the subject.
7. Don't abandon the child.  It may take a lot of time on your part, but be there through the duration.
8. Schedule the difficult subject at a time of day when your child is his freshest.  Does he wake up well?  Make it the first subject of the day?  Does he perform better after lunch?  Move this subject to after lunch.
9. Sometimes a child just doesn't see a good reason to learn.  Find a way to make the subject meaningful in his everyday life.
10. Make the subject interesting.  For instance, history can be very boring to a child.  However, most kids enjoy the movie, "Night At The Museum" which brings history to life.  Take the subject your child is struggling with and bring it to life.

Learning Styles VARK Blogathon

I entered the 2011 WordCount Blogathon.  Shortly after midnight last night, I posted my first blog entry for the duration of the daily blogging challenge.  But, just to be safe thought I'd better blog again throughout the day to make sure it all counts.  I'm fairly new to blogging, though I've been writing for an online publication since May 2009 and writing and developing documents long before that.  Still, sometimes the ins and outs of specific blogging challenges leave me feeling as though I'm not sure what I'm doing.  So, I just keep plugging way posting information that my readers hopefully find interesting.

The other day, one of my friends emailed me with an online learning style quiz.  She had taken it, and was excited to discover she was an auditory learner.  So, I agreed to check it out and take the quiz myself.

You can take the online learning styles test here! Just scroll down till you see the test entitled "How Do You Learn Best!"  You'll have to email the site to receive the test.  Or, you can take an online test right away here!

The letters VARK stand for Visual, Auditory, Rearing (Writing) and Kinesthetic.  The second test linked above leaves out the R (Writing) option and allows for only a VAK test.

Take the test and find out which learning style suits you best.