Learning Styles

Do you know your learning style? You may be surprised to know that many frustrations you've experienced in reading comprehension or test anxiety may result from your specific learning style. When you identify your own style, you can change your study habits and improve your grades.

Tactile Learning

People Who Learn by Doing

Tactile or kinesthetic learners are those who learn through experiencing/doing things. For this reason, tactile learners may become bored more quickly than other students while listening to a class lecture.

Tactile learners like to experience the world and act out events. To remember a phone number, tactile learners may remember the pattern of their fingers as the press the numbers.

Tactile learners can remember complicated directions once they've acted them out.

Look over these traits to see if they sound familiar to you. You may be a tactile learner if you are someone who:

• Is good at sports.
• Can’t sit still for long. 
• Is not great at spelling. 
• Does not have great handwriting. 
• Likes science lab. 
• Studies with loud music on. 
• Likes adventure books, movies. 
• Likes role playing. 
• Takes breaks when studying. 
• Builds models. 
• Is involved in martial arts, dance. 
• Is fidgety during lectures.

Kinesthetic Learners Can Benefit from:

• Studying in short blocks. 
• Taking lab classes. 
• Role playing. 
• Taking field trips, visiting museums. 
• Studying with others. 
• Using memory games. 
• Using flash cards to memorize.

Worst Test Type:

Long tests, essays.

Best Test Type:

Short definitions, fill-ins, multiple choice.

Visual Learning

Visual learners are those who learn things best through seeing them. Visual learning students like to keep an eye on the teacher by sitting in the front of the class and watching the lecture closely. Often, visual learners will find that information "clicks" when it is explained with the aid of a chart or picture Have you ever drawn pictures of a biology process as you studied for a test? This may be a sign that you have instinctively practiced visual learning techniques. Look over the characteristics below to see if they sound familiar. A visual learner:

• spelling but forgets names.
• Needs quiet study time. 
• Has to think awhile before understanding a speech or lecture. 
• Likes colors & fashion. 
• Dreams in color. 
• Understands/likes charts. 
• Is good with sign language.

Learning Techniques for Visual Learners

• Draw a map of events in history or draw scientific process. 
• Make outlines of everything! 
• Copy what’s on the board. 
• Ask the teacher to diagram. 
• Diagram sentences! 
• Take notes, make lists. 
• Watch videos. 
• Color code words, research notes.
• Outline reading.
• Use flashcards.
• Use highlighters, circle words, underline.

Best Test Type for Visual Learners:

Diagramming, reading maps, essays (if you use an outline), showing a process