Introduction to Home Education		National and State Support Groups		Yearly Planner, Diary & Report		Beverley's Original Home Ed Manual		Series of How To Parent Workbooks

Support Groups: National SA VIC NSW QLD TAS ACT NT
Registration Guides: VIC NSW QLD SA WA TAS ACT NT

Looking for support, reassurance and information?
Join Beverley's The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook online group.

How Useful are 'Learning Style' Labels?

© Beverley Paine, 1997

There are many books written on “learning styles” and they all relate to traditional education. Schools need to “discover” and label how children best in the restricted learning environment of the classroom, but is their any real need to consider learning styles in our home based learning programs?
You know your children intimately; from their birth you have studied their likes, dislikes, emotions, indeed everything about them. You know them like the back of your hand. You are already an expert on their learning styles, and have structured their learning programs around them since birth! So why do you need labels now?

Consider these “learning styles” labels, taken from many educational books. If you had to apply one of these to yourself, which one best describes you?

Perhaps it would be true to say you are a mixture of some, or maybe all of the above, with perhaps one or two of the descriptions appearing to dominate.

Is tracking down your dominant attributes, or learning about learning styles, really necessary to work out how to boost your ability to learn? And how much time, energy and effort will it take to do this?

Do we really need to have a label, a name for how we learn best - or do we simply need to know those things which make learning easier for us - for our individual children?

We can talk about how our brains do what they do all day. We can divide the brain up into hemispheres, learn lots of long words, look deeply into the theory of learning. Or we can ask some personal questions about ourselves, or our children, to discover very practical answers we can put to use right now!

What do you think you’d rather do?

Try this. On a scrap of paper draw a mind map (really just a sophisticated bubble diagram) as you go through the check-list overleaf. Using a variety of colours, begin from the centre, drawing and labelling each line out from the centre with the check-list headings. List those things you like/do in each heading and link them to the heading line. You’ll get a kind of tree emerging from a central point - a dendritic pattern. But the pattern isn’t important. What is important is the map of yourself you have just drawn, showing how and when learning happens best for you. All you need to do now to improve your concentration when you are learning, is to duplicate these conditions!

If only things were that simple!

There are other things you need to do, common sense things we often forget. They are also listed overleaf. Don’t underestimate their importance! Remember to ask yourself as you think about learning styles what type of learning is involved in what you want to learn. All to often we focus on “book” or “school” learning. Traditional education has always tended to value more left brain functioning than right. Most of the research in learning styles, “gifted”, “disabled” learners, and accelerated learning stems from the need to correct this imbalance.

In the home learning environment children are given more space, time, stimulation, love, consideration, access to materials, information, etc. Learning unfolds in a natural way, as it did in early childhood. However, there are always things you can do to enhance the learning environment - and should be doing, because they make sense. There will be things that work with one child and not another.

As an interested and dedicated home educating parent you would be finding these things out anyway - without the need to label your children. Sometimes, however, giving something a label can help you deal with a perceived problem, by allowing you to research and access information that can improve the learning environment or your own behaviour and attitudes, and can therefore be very useful.

See also An Introduction to Learning Styles, also by Beverley Paine, and Do You Realize You Have a 'Learning Style'? by Charlie Badenhop

and Learning Styles and Preferences.

Was this article helpful? Was it worth $1.00 to you? Your gift of $1 or more helps to keep this site operating offering encouragement and reassurance to families wanting better outcomes for their children.

Thank you for your gift contribution!

Option 1 $1.00 AUD Option 2 $5.00 AUD Option 3 $10.00 AUD Option 4 $20.00 AUD

Beverley Paine with her children, and their home educated children, relaxing at home.

Together with the support of my family, my aim is to help parents educate their children in stress-free, nurturing environments. In addition to building and maintaing this website, I continue to create and manage local and national home educating networks, help to organise conferences and camps, as well as write for, edit and produce newsletters, resource directories and magazines. I am an active supporter of national, state, regional and local home education groups.

"You've been an inspiration to me, I love the way
you really listen to people." Vanessa

"Whenever I read your writing I always come away
with increased confidence in my ability to provide and
share a wonderful learning journey with my family!" Davina

"Your guidance, understanding, support and words of
wisdom changed our lives. We now offer support and
organise many homeschooling events for others." Lesley

"Thank you once again for your prompt and friendly service.
I am convinced that your books are going to add
quality and peace of mind to my journey of teaching my kids
at home! Just from studying your website, until almost
2am in the morning, I 've been encouraged!" Louisa

"Thank you for all your many,many reassuring words
over many, many years. You probably don't know exactly how valuable you are to the Australian Home Education community. I've been reading your stuff for maybe 8 years or more now. And I'm very grateful." Gythaa

CLICK HERE if you want to learn
how to write your own education plans
to suit your unique children's individual learning needs?
Or you are looking for quality curriculum and teaching tips...

We began educating our children in 1985, when our eldest was five. In truth, we had helped them learn what they need to learn since they were born. I am a passionate advocate of allowing children to learn unhindered by unnecessary stress and competition, meeting developmental needs in ways that suit their individual learning styles and preferences. Ours was a homeschooling, unschooling and natural learning family! There are hundreds of articles on this site to help you build confidence as a home educating family. We hope that your home educating adventure is as satisfying as ours was! Beverley Paine

3 ESSENTIAL STEP BY STEP GUIDES Getting Started with Home Educating Series of PARENT WORKBOOKS #1 Create Your Own Curriculum #2 DIY Lesson Plans & Unit Studies #3 Recording and Evaluation Made Simple $10.00 each (includes postage) Let experienced home educators Beverley, Tamara and April walk you through HOW to create a learning plan that builds on solid foundations that works for YOUR family AND ticks all the boxes for home educaton registration!
Tap into Beverley's experience through her books "Your books, your blogs helped me beyond words... they helped me to find comfort in knowing it is ok to choose exactly what is best for my family." Nisha "Your books and information are mind blowing and already I am feeling good about this new experience." Diane "Your guidance, understanding, support & words of wisdom changed our lives." Leslie "I feel specially inspired by Beverley's words and, the more I read her comments, the more inspired I feel, since my need for support, respect for different parenting styles, and information are fully met." Marijo
	Connect with Beverley and ask questions through her online The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook support group.

The Educating Parent acknowledges the Traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Owners, the Custodians of Australia, and pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people viewing this website.

Advertise on this site.

Australia's premier online annual conferences, lifetime access to video and audio recordings, freebies, notes and associated resource guides.

EVERY SUMMIT IS UNIQUE!

$29 each 2023 2022 2021
$25 each 2020 2019 2017

"Biggest and best Aussie homeschool event of the year!"

Home education is a legal alternative
to school education in Australia.
State and Territory governments are responsible
for regulating home education and have different
requirements, however home educating families
are able to develop curriculum and learning programs
to suit the individual needs of their children.

Without revenue from advertising
by educational suppliers and Google Ads
we could not continue to provide information
to home educators. Please support us by letting
our advertisers know that you found them on
The Educating Parent. Thanks!

Support Centre
Contact Us | Join a Support Group | Beverley's Books | Resource Directory | Blog | Donate

About The Educating Parent
Beverley Paine | April Jermey and Always Learning Books | Advertise with us

Sitemap

Thank you for visiting!