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Test - VARK Model
Education
perfects a human. Education is not about learning,
scoring marks in exams, getting high grades and
being perceived a brilliant. Education is a practice
- a balance that helps a child grow into a complete,
balanced and matured adult that the society and
the mankind can rely upon.
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Human beings
are social. Economy is driven by our value
in the society. We are valuable not because
we are brilliant and nor because some of us
have high college degrees. We are valuable
when we contribute to the mankind in a meaningful
way that helps a section of the society.
So if you want
to educate your child, the best way to start
is to try and figure out what is the possible
best way that would maximize his/her chances
of adding value to mankind and society.
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How
to approach?
How
can you even hope to do that with a small
child who is just starting his/her education?
The point here is that you don't need to.
Children work within well-defined frameworks
just like the rest of human beings. Being
tiny children, they would live in a physically
restricted world. They would interact with
their tiny world right in front of you, and
you have the glorious opportunity to observe
the nature of their interaction with reality.
And that is all you need to know to get started.
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Children
are learners. The way that they start from zero
at birth and adopt to the world to show the interactions
with reality are indicators of their learning and
the methods they use to learn show their learning
style. So once you identify the learning style,
all that you need to do is to nourish the child
to best leverage his/her style of learning. If you
build the homeschool curriculum of your child centered
around his/her natural tendency and interests, then
the curriculum is going to push the child further
up in the right direction - the direction of his/her
interest. Clearly, this is a positive feedback loop
with an amazing self-propelling power. So your homeschool
curriculum will create the bridge between the best
possible education of your child and his/her learning
style, and will make the child best skilled in the
area that s/he would by nature tend to shine the
most. This is almost unbeatable.
What
are the different learning styles seen among children?
Several
learning theories have been proposed to model the
way that children learn. The ELT model by David
Klob, experience-driven model by Honey and Mumford,
mind perception model by Anthony Gregorc and the
Sudbury Model of Democratic Education are some well-known
learning models for children. However, the simplistic
VARK model proposed by Fleming is the most widely
accepted model.
According
to the VARK model, children learn from four major
styles. Each child tends to show one of these four
styles as his/her primary inbuilt learning method
and some of the other styles may occur in some children
as secondary learning styles. You need to identify
the primary learning style of your child, and base
your homeschooling curriculum to best leverage that.
If you also find that you child has a secondary
style then you may want to mold some additional
components of that style too to add further balance
in the curriculum. It is interesting to note that
VARK denotes the following.
V: Visual
learning style - the child's preferred style of
learning is by seeing and memorizing the visual
aspects.
A: Auditory
learning style - the child's preferred style of
learning is by listening, remembering and accurately
following instructions.
R: Rearing-writing
preferential style - the child's learning style
centers around reading and referencing, and possibly
writing and noting down the knowledge gathered.
K: Kinesthetic
leaning style - the child's learning style is
exploratory by default. S/he loves to explore
and understand things by playing around - his/her
world is a huge and colorful playground full of
interesting objects.
How
to identify the child's learning style? Identifying
your child's learning style will make the next step
for your child's homeschool curriculum design clear
for you. You need to understand which of the four
styles mentioned above best matches with the way
that your child learns well. You need to rely upon
your experience with your child. Note the following
to ease your task of understanding your child's
learning style.
- If
you have seen your child to be drawn towards arts,
paintings, crafts and books with a tendency to recapitulate
more like photographs, then your child probably
has a learning style that is driven by visual emphasis.
S/he is probably a visual learner.
- If you have found
your child to remember most of the things s/he hears
and respond accurately to most of the commands and
instructions you make, then s/he is most probably
a verbal or auditory learner.
- If the child tends
to read and be drawn to objects that require detailed
attention and cross-referencing then s/he is likely
to be a read-write preferential learner.
- If the child tends
to explore things and tinker around with items,
and end up becoming skilled to handle objects at
ease then s/he is probably a kinesthetic learner.
The chances that s/he is a kinesthetic learner
is even higher in case you see him/her easily learning
to handle other objects with certain degree of similarity
with things that s/he has already handled.
Once
you know your child's learning style, simply design
the curriculum to best fit that. If you are not
sure about the right way to design the curriculum
in spite of identifying your child's learning style,
then you may want to look into online forums and
talk to school teachers known to you, or even take
professional help to start the process of designing
the homeschool curriculum.
Visitors
who read this article also read:
-
Learning
Styles in Children
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