Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Mike Farris:
Cathy, last time you highlighted the importance of the parent’s teaching style when choosing curriculum. What if the child’s learning style doesn’t match the parent’s teaching style?

Cathy Duffy:
I think it’s fairly rare when parents and children all share the same learning styles. More likely is the situation where mom has one learning style and her children are all over the map. The key is for parents to focus on subject areas or skills where a child struggles, not every subject. Then pay close attention to methods teaching those subjects or skills.

For example, a hands-on learner is struggling to learn his times-tables: forget the paper and pencil drill sheets. Instead use blocks—the child can physically create and count the groups. But this means parents often have to step outside their own comfort zone to use methods they wouldn’t prefer to use on their own. If mom loves real books, like me, but she has children who need a much more active learning experience, she’s going to waste her time if she tries to teach history by having her children sit and listen to read-aloud books for long. She doesn’t need to abandon the real books, but she’ll need to break up the reading with active learning like projects, map-making, or field trips.

We don’t need to cater entirely to our children’s learning styles, but when they’re struggling, we need to find the ways to teach them that are easiest for them to grasp the concepts.

Mike:
Cathy, that’s really great advice. Thanks for being with us. I’m Mike Farris.