How to know if you are predominantly a visual learner? How do you approach new things? If you have a new bookshelf to put together, what do you do first? If you read the directions before you build, you are visual. You’d rather see a map than have someone tell you the directions. When in school, and taking a test, you could see in your mind the page of text with the answer. Your handwriting is likely very neat. You like things tidy and put away. You make lists. You look well put together and color-coordinated. You’ll likely want to watch when in a new situation to see how things are going before you join in. You’re good at reading facial expressions.

How to tell if your child is visual? When you read a picture book, do they want to see the pictures? I do. I’m visual, and while I’m checking out interesting illustrations, my daughter impatiently says, “Turn the page, Mom.”

How else can you tell? Your child will frequently say, “Show me” or “Let me see.” They’ll be good at learning sight words. Puzzles will be easy to complete. They’ll arrange their things, just so. They’ll have neat handwriting. They’ll be good at finding misprints. When you’re mad, they’ll say, “You look mad.”

How can you work with a visual learner? Be sure to provide them with visuals. If they have chores to do each day, have a list for them to see. If you’re training them, give them a list of steps to follow. Provide them with ways to store and sort their belongings. Be patient as they make their work look neat.

Reminds me of my teen years and putting on my makeup. My parents always wanted me to be ready to go, and I needed the time to feel I looked my best, or I felt all day that I didn’t look right.

If a child is struggling with a certain skill, they will need to practice in a visual way. If it’s math, flash cards and workbooks would be appropriate. Math problems in picture form will help them ’see’ the math function being carried out. In spelling, they’ll want to look at the words many times. For science and social studies, it may be enough to read things and create charts to make sense of the material.

When you really need them to listen to you, they might need to be looking at you. They might need to read your message in a letter or note. If it’s not written down, it might not get done.

Sound familiar, you’re likely a visual learner. If not, read the upcoming posts on auditory and kinesthetic learners. And remember that we all have a bit of each style.

There are three common learning styles. You might be auditory, and prefer to listen to gain information. Could you be visual, preferring to read or see information? Or are you kinesthetic, needing to touch and manipulate something to learn? Likely, we each have a bit of all three learning styles.  Although we likely have a dominant style for  processing information.

In my house, I’m visual. My husband is auditory. And my daughter is mostly auditory, with some of the other two styles. She’s still young enough that I’m not sure she has one preference yet.

In future posts, I’ll share more descriptions so that you’ll have a really good idea of which style you prefer. You’ll also be able to apply the styles to your children.

Why is that important? Future posts will also share ways to connect with the other styles so that your message is clear. It will also help you to work with your children on learning activities.

And if you’re working outside the home, and provide training for others, the suggestions will help you too.

Stay tuned.

A study from UCLA has found that activities that get children, aged 2 months to 4 years, talking are most helpful to language acquisition. Even more than exposure to one-on-one reading, adult-child conversations have more of an impact on language development. The study was published in the July issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

This fits a tip I shared earlier. Children will practice conversation turn-taking as well as build their vocabulary through conversations. By giving them the chance to have a conversation, with a give and take, they’ll make mistakes, learn correct words and sentence structure, and use language purposefully.

Thanks to Parenthood.com for sharing this study with the rest of us.

Seems like every class I’ve taught has had the problem. I’ve seen it when I’ve observed in my daughter’s classes. At least one child  is picked on by another child. No - make that bullied by another child. The bullying child says mean things, purposely trips, pokes at, and just continually bothers that other child when they get the chance.

As a teacher, the frustration is that it is difficult to catch the bully in the act. For them to receive a consequence that will make them pause in the future, they really need to be caught in the act of bullying.

I needed a way to prevent the bullying. I knew that it happened while the class walked down the hall. That’s where I chose to make a change in my procedure.

I used to have my line leader lead my class, while I walked next to them. If a door needed to be held open, I’d hold it as my class walked on through. Problem was, I couldn’t see all of the class, thereby giving opportunity to those doing the bullying.

Here’s how I changed my line procedure, so that I could keep my entire class in sight.

I put the line leader first.

I assigned a new class helper position - door holder. They lined up second, even if no doors would need to be opened.

I called out various ways for the students to line up - sometimes by colors worn, by letters in their names, or by other ideas. I looked carefully to eliminate the possibility that the bully would be next to the child they picked on. If they still ended up next to each other, I put someone between them. I never said why, because they knew.

When we walked, we had certain places the leader was to stop and wait for all to catch up.

I walked next to the last child in line, allowing me to see everyone in the line.

They never went around a corner unless all of the class had caught up. And I always stood at the corner so I could see everyone on both sides of the turn. Isn’t peripheral vision great when we need it.

I found that keeping the class walking together, and keeping all of the children in my sight, eliminated the opportunity for bullying - at least during this part of the day. The child being picked on knew I was looking out for them. And the bully knew they were being watched.

I recently wrote about ways to encourage children to sit still for a story or book reading. And today I read a discussion on LinkedIn about the vocabulary author’s use when writing children’s books. Both reminded me that I’ve been told my daughter’s vocabulary, especially when she was 2 and 3 years old, seemed older than her age. I attribute it to two practices. First, we never talked down to her using baby-talk words. We had conversations with her, and used synonyms for new words if she didn’t understand.

Second, we’ve read a large variety of books to her and with her. We’ve followed certain characters, authors, illustrators, and series. Whenever we’ve come upon a new word, we used several techniques. We might automatically provide a synonym in the same sentence. If we could recall something from her past experiences that would help her learn the word, we would stop and help her recall that experience and make the connection. It could have been another book, somewhere we’d visited, a television show, or a conversation. Another technique we used was to stop and ask if she knew what the word meant. If she said no, we explained. And now, as we read nonfiction science books, we can use word parts to determine the word’s meaning. She wouldn’t be able to do that herself right now, yet I know it will give her a headstart on that skill when she encounters it in her schooling.

Doing these things that frequently, helped her learn that it was okay not to know all of the words she read, and that there were ways to figure them out. She frequently stops us now to ask what a word means.

The same techniques can be done with a class of children. Some of the chapter books that I loved to read to my students dealt with situations with which they had no experience. I’m thinking of The Indian in the Cupboard and knowledge of cowboys and indians. I stopped when needed to explain, to enable them to follow the story.

We want our children to read books that they can experience success when reading. Yet we also want them to continue growing in their language and knowledge. We can help by purposefully making connections for them.

How long can a little one sit to listen to a story? I have this discussion pretty frequently when I’m talking with parents about skills they’re working on with their child. Usually it’s a parent that really wants to enjoy reading books with their child, yet the child just won’t sit still for a book.

For children, their attention span is about twice their age. A three year old should be able to sit about 6 minutes to talk about and hear a book read. If you keep that in mind when selecting books, it will make story time more rewarding.

Another tip is to select a story that you’ll really enjoy reading. Why? Because you’re more likely to use different voices, or at least vary your speech as you read. That makes for more interest and variety, and it could increase the length of books read.

Does the child like music? If so, pick books that are song lyrics with pictures. Those were always favorites with my daughter, as she got mommy singing and a book at the same time. Those types of books are also good for building knowledge of how books work and later word recognition.

Books with favorite characters or favorite types of characters will be more interesting. My daughter was in love with ducks for about 2 years. I searched the library shelves for any books that had ducks on the cover. Then I’d check the story inside to see if it was a good length for her.

If you have other tips for selecting books for preschool children, please share. I know others will appreciate the input.

As babies grow into toddlers, it helps to have another form of communication, rather than us doing all the talking for them like when they are infants. We found Baby Signs to be a great method. We focused on the signs for Eat, Drink, More, All Done, Thank you, You’re Welcome, Sorry, and Again. We’d sign and say the word at the same time. Eventually, we’d take our daughter’s hands and help her to make the sign. We found that she made some of them her own way. All Done is both palms up, and then turned over. Instead, she’d do that repeatedly, kind of twinkling them. But we understood. And that was the point. Communicating her needs and desires to us before she had the words to do so.

I know others that have used Baby Signs, learning and teaching even more of the words, and with the same success. It’s an effective way to prevent or lessen the tantrums that children have when they are frustrated and don’t know what else to do.

You can find certified instructors at www.babysigns.com. There is also www.weehands.com.

And I can’t forget the most important sign, that we used multiple times throughout the day, still - I Love You. From across the room, it’s a silent way to give them your support and reassurance.

The passage of time is a hard concept for preschool children. They want to know when things will happen. My daughter’s latest inquiry, “How long until the babysitter comes?”

I’ve found that if I answer by comparing to something she cares about and experiences on a repeated basis, then she understands better how long her wait might be. For the babysitter question, I answered that she’d come in about the same amout of time as 3 dance classes (to equal 3 hours). About an hour later, she asked again, and was excited when I said, “About 2 dance classes.”

Sometimes I compare to how long her favorite tv show lasts. Perhaps it’s how long it takes to drive to the grocery store. What about the amount of time we spend eating dinner?

Start with what’s relevant to their world, and then connect it to hours and minutes. They likely won’t be ready for a lesson using a clock. Yet they’ll eventually come to understand elapsed time. And that can lessen how many times we have to answer questions like, “How long until we get there?”