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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.
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 society.
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.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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