HS #253 How Many Times Do I Have to Say It? with Cynthia Tobias and Sue Acuña
Links and Resources:
Show Notes:
Cynthia Ulrich and Sue Acuňa
Cynthia Tobias is the author of best-selling books The Way They Learn and You Can’t Make Me! (But I Can Be Persuaded) and featured frequently on Focus on the Family’s Best of Broadcast , Cynthia Tobias has a successful background that includes over 32 years as an author and speaker, 8 years of teaching high school, and 6 years in law enforcement.
Cynthia has written 14 books and is a featured guest on radio and television, a popular presenter for business, government agencies, churches and schools throughout the U.S. and the world. She is the mother of twin sons, now young adults, and she and her husband Jack live in the Seattle area.
Sue Acuña is one of those goofy teachers who enjoys spending time with middle schoolers. She and Cynthia Tobias co-authored Middle School: The Inside Story (What Kids Tell Us But Don’t Tell You), which has led to new adventures as a speaker. She has crisscrossed the country sharing anecdotes and advice on how the classroom experience can be more successful and enjoyable for everyone—students, parents, and teachers.
Sue received her B.A. and M.Ed. from Concordia University, Portland. She currently teaches middle school at Concordia Christian Academy in Tacoma and also directs the choir at St. Luke’s Lutheran in Federal Way. Sue and her husband Paul have been married for almost 40 years and have raised three sons, one of whom is married and expecting a son in June.
RESOURCES (Resources mentioned in the podcast episode):
Tobias, Cynthia Ulrich. I Hate School! How to Help Your Child Love Learning. Grand Rapids, MI: Harper Collins.
Tobias, Cynthia Ulrich. The Way They Learn: How To Discover and Teach to Your Child's Strengths. Colorado Springs, CO: Focus on the Family
Tobias, Cynthia Ulrich. The Way We Work: Taking Charge of Your Own Success. Apple St.
Order books: https://cynthiatobias.christianbook.com/
Show Transcript:
HS EP 253
Wendy -
Hello and welcome back to another installment of the Homeschool Solutions Show. My name is Wendy Speake and I am one of the many hosts we have here on the podcast. Each week, you'll hear from one of us, inviting one of our friends to join for a conversation about this busy, blessed season as we educate our children at home.
Now, the title of the show is Homeschool Solutions. While we don't have the answer to every question, we know that all the solutions to every stress and every struggle can be found in the Person and presence of Jesus Christ and His living and active and applicable Word. We are so glad that you're here to join us for today's conversation. But before we start the show, I'd like to thank our sponsors.
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And now, on to today's show.
Cynthia -
This is Cynthia Tobias.
Sue -
And this is Sue Acuna.
Cynthia -
And you're listening to, it's never just another day. We talk about a lot of practical strategies, Sue, and tips, and ways for parents to help their kids succeed. Last week, we talked about finding the right spot for studying or concentrating. But today, we're gonna talk about how do you help them remember. Like, how many times do you have to say it before they finally remember?
Sue -
And we know homeschool parents are the most wonderful people when it comes to researching and learning and understanding, and so we think what we have to share today will really help you to understand why one child learns one way and another one's another.
Cynthia -
And of course, when it comes to learning styles, two things are important to remember. First of all, what we're giving you here is based on good, solid, empirical research. We are just translating it into very practical things, and you can find resources on the website. There's an annotated bibliography in places you can find the citations for what we're talking about.
And secondly, you know, when it comes to how we learn and how we remember and all of this, it's not really boxes or categories. You can't give a test or give a list and have your kids check it off and then come down at the bottom of what they are. It's really more like puzzle pieces, which actually is much more complicated. Not quite as simple, right?
Sue -
And when I teach this to my students in my middle school classrooms, they will always say, well, I don't think I'm that. I think I'm this and that. And I remind them, you're a little bit of both. Little bit of all three. Everyone has all three parts. It's which ones are the strongest for you.
Cynthia -
And the three puzzle pieces that we're talking about today have to do with what we would call modalities, and that's modes of remembering. Remembering information. And we all have all three pieces. Most adults will have a closer...they won't, there won't be a big enough difference between the pieces, not drastically anyway. But the younger the child, a lot of times, the more extreme you see the difference in how they need the information in order to actually remember.
Sue -
And I know, as we talk about it, adults will say, oh, that's me. I have to do that to remember something. Kids are still finding out what works best for them, and it's ??? for us to observe and offer suggestions and help them find the ways.
C -
Right. And the pleasure of this, and the real bonus of this, if you're a homeschool parent, you get to experiment. You get to try, and if one way doesn't work, you say, let's try this. And let's see if this works. Cause it's not that easy to do in a classroom. The three puzzle pieces that we're talking about have to do with auditory, learned by hearing, visual, learned by seeing, and kinesthetic, learned by doing. At least, those are kinda the classical definitions of it. But it's not actually that simple, is it, Sue?
S -
No, because you'd think that the auditory people have to always be listening to something, or that the visual people have to always be reading something. And, as we'll learn, it's not that cut and dried.
C -
Right. In fact, if you have an auditory child, like I do, and I believe you do also, and I'm married to a very auditory person...
S -
I was going to say, or an auditory husband.
C -
But, Jack is just totally auditory. The auditory person does learn best by listening. But not by listening to others, necessarily. With the auditory person, they need to hear themselves talk and listen to their own voice before it actually sinks in. And this is a whole different ball game.
S -
And I had a friend just last week who texted me and said, do auditory people need quiet, because they're distracted by outside noises? And I said, absolutely. Well, her husband, who's very quiet, but an auditory learner, needed to talk through doing the taxes, and any noises she made around the house was distracting to him.
C -
Right. Which is interesting because, I have twins, and they're only two minutes apart, and Robert is my auditory, extroverted, friendly, you know, never-be-quiet kid. But Mike, interesting enough, has an auditory piece. But his auditory piece is, he makes what we would call a thinking noise. He can't really...he's always making this one kind of bup, bup, a-duh, or tap, tap, tap, or who's humming. And you say, Mike! Could you move through ten seconds and not make that noise? And he would say, what noise? He doesn't realize he's making noise. In order to think, he needs noise. But not your noise. He can't think with your noise. It has to be a noise that he has created himself and doesn't even realize he's making.
S -
And you taught me auditory learners like to hear themselves talking about what they're learning. So, I had a student, several years ago, who, during a math test, everybody wanted to sit by him, because he was a very strong math student. And he talked all the way through his math test, and they just had to listen to what he was writing down.
C -
That's right. And a lot of times, you know, the auditory kids will ask you more questions. Well, what about, and what about this, and what about that? And once they ask themselves, they ask you something, and they've said it to themselves, well, then it kinda sinks in. And sometimes, they don't actually need you to answer.
S -
No, and you can toss it right back. Well, I don't know. What do you think about that? And as they talk it through, they come to a conclusion, or to an understanding.
C -
Right. Which is very interesting, because it can be very annoying. The other thing that we found with auditory learners is, they tend to be a slower reader. Which doesn't mean they really are not a good reader. It means that they simply read more slowly because...
S -
Well, they're moving their mouths and sometimes muttering, and...
C -
And they have to say the sound of every word to themselves. Cause inside their head, they're reading out loud. Even though you insist you need to read silently, sometimes you'll still see them moving their lips or they'll just go a little bit slower. And it's not...the other thing about it is, they don't just make up sounds for words they don't know how to pronounce. If an auditory learner is reading and he doesn't know what that word sounds like, or what it means, they can't just skip it and go on like I do. I just, okay, whatever, and, but, the auditory person stops and goes, I have to find out what that means, or how to say it. Or I have to make up a way to say it before I can go on to the next word.
S -
Auditory learners also like the way words sound. And I think about that scene from the movie, Elf, where Will Ferrell is sitting there going, San Francisco, that's fun to say. And just a little side thought, if you have a child who's on the autism spectrum, and they hear a word that they like the sound of, they're going to repeat it a lot because it...not only do they like how it sounds, it's also very comforting. So that is always a big clue right there.
C -
It was fun every year with my students in my high school class because we would make a list of sounds of words we liked the sound of. Sarsaparilla. Ratchet. Zimbabwe. Bible names, you know, and they're...then they could, they would get an idea of what to write about, based on kind of what the word sounded like.
S -
And you have to help an auditory learner to understand how they can be distracted by the sound of the word. And suddenly they're saying that word, which reminds them of another word, and you might just have to gently say, okay, back to work.
C -
Right. Or if you're trying to get through a movie, or you're trying to get through a lesson or presentation, you may very possibly be interrupted several times by the auditory person. Just because, well, what about, and I thought, and could you...wait till the end of my explanation, and I'll tell that. But as soon as it occurs to the auditory child, it just comes out.
S -
Take a road trip with an auditory learner and they're going to read all the signs to you and give you all their thoughts about all the different signs and whether or not they've seen that kind of thing before. And if you're not auditory, or even if you are auditory, listening to them, it just going to make it a really long trip.
C -
And one other tip that I've discovered in the last couple three years, is that the auditory person, really, it's really really important that you not have a monotone voice. That your voice has inflection. That it has meaning. One of the examples, my friend named Paul said, he and his wife, they went to this 3D theater and they had three different choices of movies. And there was one person outside one of the movies that was saying, this is amazing and it's got this, and it's got that. And Paul didn't really wanna see that when it wasn't that interesting to him. But his wife was very auditory, said, that's the one we're going to. Because, that's the one that the voice brought her in and the inflection, and so, sometimes it's even just as simple as if you make sure that you're not exasperated, or you're frustrated, or... The auditory kids tend to be very sensitive to your tone of voice, whether you know it or not.
S -
And they'll content of whatever you said because they're so...either annoyed by the sound or fascinated. Why are you talking so high? Why does ??? have an accent?
C -
The other interesting thing is, if you're the parent and you're the auditory one, you might actually have a child who's a bigger piece of the puzzle when it comes to the visual piece. And so, as you're talking to them, they have a much more visual need to see what you're saying to see what you're talking about. Now, the visual we always think about, you just need to see something so you give 'em a worksheet or you give 'em a colorful folder or you give 'em a picture of something, but it actually is even more than that.
S -
They like to visualize what you're talking about and so sometimes for a visual learner, the hardest thing to do while you're speaking is to make eye contact with you because I that totally distracts from the picture they're creating inside their own head.
C -
Right, and you've gone through this explanation, but I'm still trying, from the first sentence that you said to picture, whoa, I mean, I don't know what that'll look like and what would that be? My classic example, if I have an auditory parent, and I'm a very visual child, and my auditory parent says, look, I need you to go downstairs and get that blue mug off the kitchen sink and put it outside on the patio table. So, I say, okay. And the minute I've turned, I can't remember exactly what she just said, cause I was listening, but it went by so fast, and so I don't wanna turn around and ask again, because I will hear, how many times do I have to tell you, and what do you mean... read my lips, this time. So, I go down, I try to do what I think she said, and it almost never works out.
On the other hand, if I'm the visual kid, and my auditory parent says, listen, I need you to go downstairs and, to the kitchen sink, and that blue mug, there's a blue porcelain mug sitting by the sink. You know what I mean? Pause. Pause. Pause. Oh yeah, what am I doing? Picturing that mug. I need you to take that mug and take it out to the patio and put it on the round, white patio table. Pause. Pause. Now, what are the chances now that I'm gonna do exactly what you just told me? They're pretty huge. But we don't always think of it if you're the auditory parent, you just say it again, and again. And again. Maybe slower. And multiple times. And as a visual kid, I'm not trying to irritate you. I'm trying to picture in my head, what are you talking about.
S -
Or, you said the blue mug. And I'm thinking, is that the blue one with Mickey Mouse on it, or is that the blue one that we got at Yosemite Elementary? We liked Yosemite. I wish I could go back there and draw some more.
C -
And there goes your mind, yeah. Yeah, and my husband, he is very auditory, so he likes to hear the GPS lady. I don't want the GPS lady. I want to see in my mind where we're going and if I've been there once, I can go there again. I want to have a picture in my head, and I also don't want the street names. I want you to tell me what's it close to. Well, it's by the Chevron station down by, you know, the old church that used to have that white picket fence. And I'm going oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the one that, right next door, there's a sort of a daycare. Yeah, that's the place. That's giving me as a visual learner, a very orienting context and I'm orienting myself to figure out what in the world are you talking about.
S -
Well, and you're also picturing yourself there, before you ever arrive, so when you arrive, it looks familiar. And you can just go. My middle son was one who always struggled to follow multiple directions, especially. And when I learned this technique to say, okay, so I need the scissors. You picturing the scissors? They have an orange handle, and they're next to the bathroom sink. You know, in my bathroom upstairs? He would do amazingly better. I no longer thought he was just a distractible child, and guess what? He went on to get a college degree in graphic arts.
C -
Yeah, and if I'm a visual kid, which I am, you look me in the eye and don't go on until you've either asked me the question of, do you know which I mean? Do you know what I'm talking about? And you can see by my eyes and my head nodding, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. If you don't get that acknowledgment, then the chances are pretty good, we didn't actually get it. And we might be just sort of making you think we got it so you'll stop talking to us.
S -
Then when I'm teaching a visual learner, a visual learner will often look like they're daydreaming because they're looking off and they're thinking about something. And sometimes I have to stop and just check-in and make sure that they're still tracking. And they are, it's just that what they're creating inside their head is very specific sometimes. Or very connected to something else. Something unusual. Oh, I'm remembering that by thinking of it as a bird that's flying away.
C -
Right, and so, it's very different piece of the puzzle and some people will have big pieces of both of those. And some people won't. But, and it isn't so important that you find out exactly which piece they need. It's that, now that you know what the differences are between pieces, then you can kinda switch gears and say, okay, let me put this another way.
S -
Well, and let's talk about the doodlers.
C -
Right.
S -
Because there are people who listen better by doodling and when they're done, they can look back at the picture and tell you, oh you were talking about here when I was drawing this, and you were talking about this when I was drawing this. And to us, it may look like they're not paying attention, but with my students, I always make them prove it to me. So, I'll say you can draw, but at any time, if I stop and ask you what we're talking about, you better be able to tell me. And I have had kids who I'll say, hey, Bethany, do you know where we are? And she'll sheepishly put her pencil down and go, um, maybe I shouldn't draw while you're talking.
C -
And you know, awareness is half the battle. And when you talk to your kids about it, it's, are you being that, are you doodling because you're remembering? Or are you doodling because you don't wanna remember? And so just bring it up and talk about it and ask me and it makes a difference.
S -
Visual learners also like to add color to their notes. They're the ones who'll highlight or write in different colored pens. I had a student, you said awareness, I had a student a few years ago who thought she was very visual and tried doing that, and quickly realized doing her notes in color was too distracting for her. In fact, after we talked through styles, she realized how auditory she was. And so instead of colorful notes, she actually would read her notes into her phone to record them and then listen to herself talk about it. So, for kids to understand that this method might work or it might not work, but here's something else you can try, is huge.
C -
Right. And you have the freedom to try them. You don't always have that in a classroom of 30 kids, but when you have a classroom of two or three kids in your living room...
S -
Whom you've known your whole life...
C -
Their whole life.
S -
Their whole lives. Yes.
C -
Yeah, that's great. One of the most challenging pieces of the puzzle, the third piece is what we would say is kinesthetic. Now, we've always...I always figured, until I got into the learning styles, even as a teacher, we sort of figured that kinesthetic learned by doing. Didn't you kinda learn that in the beginning?
S -
Like, hands-on.
C -
Yeah. You have manipulatives. You, you know, as long as you're doing something with your hands, or doing something with it, but it turns out, in the research, really, it, that's not what it means. Kinesthetic, actually means, born to move. So, some part of...if your whole body, kinesthetically, wants to move, like, some part of it, if you're big in this piece of the puzzle, it's very hard for you to just sit still and not move in some way. I'm...my knee's going up and down even now as we're recording, right? And, so, the highly kinesthetic child, it's almost impossible not to move. And that's pretty inconvenient, because the younger they are, especially, you cannot, it doesn't...it just...sit still, stop moving and look at me. But, if you take a child who's born to move and you won't let them move, what are they gonna think about while you talk to them?
S -
Oh, when can I move? When can I get outta here? When can I get up?
C -
Right. And so, what we found with the highly kinesthetic energetic kids, a couple things. First of all, working in shorter spurts is often very beneficial. Cause they know that they don't have to stay much more than ten minutes before they can get up and take a break and then come back and do some more. The other thing that helps a lot of times, is just put 'em in a chair that rocks, or swivels, or moves in some way. For even some classrooms I've been in, where they have the exercise balls. Where they have a seat back on that you can get at office supply stores. A lot of kids, while they're sitting at their computer, the highly kinesthetic ones like those balls because they're whole body is moving to keep them balanced and they don't even know they're moving anymore, cause they're focused on their task because their body, which was screaming at them to move, no longer is bugging them, so they can think about what they're doing rather than how they're doing it.
S -
And in a classroom, there are all kinds of adaptive tools you can get now, which you could use at home too. The T shaped stool, where they're just completely wiggling around on it. Or a wiggle cushion. But I found, I had a student years ago who was working on memorizing Bible Scripture, and he was pacing the room and rehearsing it, pacing the room and rehearsing it, and he stopped to say it to me, and couldn't remember it. And I said Kevin, just keep walking while you say it. And he kept moving and said it perfectly. He couldn't do it standing still because the whole holding still piece was a huge distraction for him.
C -
Right. And a lot of times if you want to get your kids to memorize their multiplication tables, some of the facts go out and shoot hoops. Take a drive in the car. Believe it or not.
S -
Swing. Jump on a mini trampoline.
C -
Right. I had a mom, one homeschool mom, tell me that when it came to vocabulary and spelling words, she put them on each one of the stairs, she would put a different word, and she would have her kinesthetic child go up and down the stairs and it had a double benefit. Not only did she remember the words better, but she was pretty exhausted by dinner time.
S -
And really, it's good educational science. The more parts of the body we can involve in learning, the better we learn it. It's just for the kinesthetic kid to not be able to move is just really inhibiting.
C -
There is kinda one downside of it. Of kinesthetic kids. I could tell this, I can tell you this because I'm...that's a big piece of my puzzle. The downside of the kinesthetic kid, to some extent, is, the other part of this is we really have to try it. We have to get our hands on it. We have to touch it. We have to experience. The door says danger, do not go beyond this point. I just need to see what the danger is. I'm not saying I"ll go, I'm the little kid that's running my hand down the wall. I'm the kid who says, lemme try it, let me taste.
S -
How hard do I have to bend this pencil before it breaks. Oh, okay...
C -
Oh, that's it.
S -
But, I had to know. Yeah.
C -
Right. I want field trips. I wanna actually see something in action, and so it's not gonna be enough for me, sometimes, even just to watch a movie. Right? Cause I can't do anything while I watch a movie. Take me somewhere. Let me actually do an experiment with my hands. Let me get some hands-on activity, not just hands-on experience. Activity. I want to move.
S -
Give me the thing you're showing for show and tell. Give me...or don't just show it to me and say you can't touch it. Give it to me, or say you can touch it like this, but I have to at least get my hands on it. And, I know this is really true for you. A kinesthetic learner can be still for a while as long as there's a promised break. So if you know that, fifteen minutes to whatever break, okay, I can do this for fifteen minutes. I can do this for eight more minutes. Alright, only two more minutes. I can survive it. But to sit and have absolutely no idea, when your next break is going to be, which we've experienced as conference attendees, is we can watch, good spend an hour. It's been an hour. I think, I say, um, I wonder if he's got a break. I'm no longer listening. I'm just hoping somewhere there, there's going to be a break.
C -
And here's where you can really teach your kids about their own style and you can shift some responsibility for this to them. Ask them, okay, I know you're restless. We have to be able to do this for ten minutes without getting up. What is gonna help you? What could you do to move that wouldn't be distracting to anybody else? And you could still be doing your work. So you challenge them to do it, and if they can't think of something, you say, well, would you like a suggestion. But you wanna always challenge them, what is it gonna take? The auditory kid that says, well I have to talk. And, well, what if you get in a position where there's just no way you're in this setting where you can't talk? What do you think you could do? Well, maybe I could whisper to myself, and maybe I wouldn't make any sound, but I could rehearse it in my head. So, what you're doing, all along, is your goal, is to get them to recognize what that strength is, why are they frustrated, and what can they do about it? And they, you don't, you aren't gonna be around the rest of their life to tell them.
S -
And it's important to point out that it's an adult skill. I love it when we're at a conference and you point out to the adults in the room, look at how many of you are moving here. How have you been dealing with this? And it's something that we learn, it's okay to fidget your leg quietly. It's not okay to tap your pencil on the table, because you have to be considerate of other people.
C -
Right. It's amazing, you'll be surprised if you just try, even a couple of these things that, what the result is. When I first started teaching high school, I had a group of kids that they told me, were just mediocre kids. In vocabulary, English, look, you know, as long as they get a D and they pass the class, they're just not capable of getting much higher. Well, I had just gotten through learning a lot about this learning styles, especially with modality, so we had an 89-word vocabulary test that I needed to give them. And so, I told them, kinda described each of these three things, had 'em go through kind of a little checklist to see where they thought they might be, and I said, now, for the next three days in class, I'm just gonna let you review these vocabulary words and definitions, but I want you to do it in three different groups. We're gonna have an auditory group and in the auditory group, they'll be quizzing each other back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Undulations. Wavelike movements. Then in the second group, we're going to be visual, so you'll either draw a flashcards or pictures or draw pictures to doodle and get yourself to think of what that definition of that word is. And then the third group will be kinesthetic, and you guys are gonna put some action to words. So like, undulations, you're gonna move your body and wave-like motions. Well, of course, the first thing that they did was just go in the group with their friends, right? Cause they didn't have...and it wasn't even, probably fifteen minutes till I heard all over the room, ugh, I can't do it this way! I can't do it this way. Cause they're driving me crazy. And little by little, even that first day, they found their way into a group where they go, oh, this really helps me. So after three days of reviewing that way, we took the test. And these so-called mediocre kids, out of 29 kids, on an 89-word difficult vocabulary test, 26 of them didn't miss one. Three of them only missed four. Nobody got less than an A- or B+. I was pretty excited, and I went to the faculty room and told them my excitement. And can you guess what their response was?
S -
Probably not enthusiastic.
C -
It was less than enthusiastic. Oh, well, you probably cheated for 'em. They probably cheated. So, I got so irritated with that, that I waited two more weeks, and without warning, and in a different format, I gave the same kids the same vocabulary test in a different format.
S -
And I think one of the most, one of things about being a homeschool parent is the variety of ways you can assess a child's knowledge. So, if you know you have a highly visual learner, asking that learner to make flashcards to study on their own, or to draw out what they've learned could be helpful. If you have a highly auditory child, you could quiz them orally. No need to put anything on paper. You can totally assess what they know. Kinesthetic kids are always the most interesting when you assess them. You just ask them, hey, show me what you know. And it's amazing. Well, I came up with this skit. Okay, can I just do the skit for you? Watch and I'm gonna act out all the parts.
C -
And once they get confident with that, you know, they'll be a time where they probably are gonna have to take a standardized test. They'll have to take the SAT or they'll have to take something. So, then they've got the skills to say, okay, what do I need to do in order to get through this and in order to remember this? And they can come up with their own coping skills, which is pretty impressive.
S -
Or they can realize, this part's gonna be hard for me, but I know I can do it because I will get the break later. You know, the one thing you didn't talk about, with the kinesthetic piece, is the eating and drinking, and even as we've been speaking, you know, I've been quietly sneaking sips of coffee, because for me to focus, having something to eat or drink can be really helpful.
C -
Yeah, and that's one idea, I'm kinesthetic, but you notice, I haven't taken a drink. Which is unusual for me, cause I do like to eat or drink while I'm working. And yet, so, that's one of those puzzle pieces and complexities. And so, it doesn't hurt to have some munchies there, or something they can just reach out, take a drink of something so that that qualifies as movement.
S -
But other kids have told me eating or drinking is distracting because they get so fascinated by the shape of that snack, so again, trial and error. I think bringing it all back to what you started in the beginning, remembering that everybody has all the puzzle pieces. Nobody is purely visual. They might like to daydream, but at the same time, they need to get up and move. Nobody's purely auditory. Nobody's purely kinesthetic.
C -
And ask them, ask them, do you think this would help? In my book, I HateSchool, which is, I didn't make that title. The publisher did. But it's actually how to help your child love learning. And at the end of every chapter, there's actually a homeschool application. But we ask, I worked with about 250, 300 kids, and got some great quotes. And I wanted to read you one in each of these that auditory kids, one of my favorite quotes that a...Megan, she was a high school student, she says, I need to discuss things. And something that would help school make a lot more sense to me is if we could discuss it and not just get an assignment to do it. She wanted to talk, talk, talk to her friends. When we looked at visual, Adam, in the seventh grade, he said, I think I'd study better if the homework sheets had pictures, so that they could help me understand what I mean. And Joel, a twelfth grader, he was visual too, and he said, school should be drastically shortened. I spend 90% of my time staring out the window. That's probably true of homeschool too. If you just give me a break where I can stare out the window.
S -
And I think, as a homeschool parent, probably one of your first tasks should be to sit down and say, hey, how do I learn best? What are my favorite methods? Look for where the conflicts are between you and your learners, and then figure out how to help them learn what will work best for them.
C -
One of my favorite quotes from kinesthetic...this is Sally, fourth grade. If I don't understand something after hearing it the first time, I really need to make a dance or a song out of it, or talk about it with my friends. And you know, this can be irritating in a classroom, but it will also irritate you at home, cause like you said, Sue, if you tend to be not a kinesthetic person, then it's driving you crazy that the kid won't sit still. Or if you tend to not be an auditory person, you don't necessarily think about, why do you talk so much? Why can't you at some point just stop and listen?
S -
But to be able to say, oh, I know what you're doing there. You're talking about it so that you can learn it and remember it, makes all the difference.
C -
Or they can admit, well not really. I was goofing off, yeah. You know, a sense of humor and a smile and a, is that, does that help you remember this, what you're doing right there? Is that so you can help remember that?
S -
Or, are you just trying to bug your brother? It's good to know. Good to laugh. Yep.
C -
That's right. So, it's not rocket science. And you don't have to have an advanced degree as a parent to try to figure out what are your child's best ways of learning. And, one of the best things I love about learning styles is that it is a lot easier just asking the questions to your child. What do you think would help? Why does this frustrate you? What would your ideal situation be? You know, last time we talked about finding the right spot. And, do you need music? Would music help you? And so we put it all together and we realize that we're pretty diverse package, is why, obviously, that it can never be just another day cause you don't have just another kid.
We'll look forward to talking to you next time. We're gonna talk about some very interesting things on how to help your child actually comprehend and make decisions about information. And it'll be fun, cause Sue and I are really opposite on that one.
S -
And it's a big piece for organization. Motivation fits in. But yes, we usually talk about opposite ends of the spectrum, so it's always entertaining.
C -
But the nice thing about it is, every single child can succeed and every child can learn. See ya next time.
Wendy -
Thank you for joining us this week at the Homeschool Solutions Show. As always, you can find show notes and links to all the resources mentioned at Homeschooling.mom. I hope you'll take a moment to subscribe to the podcast and, if it was especially meaningful to you, share it with your friends via email or social media. This is just another way we can all encourage and love and support one another.
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