One day I took over a colleague teacher’s class in order to free her to assess her students’ reading level. Dorothy, a 10-year-old girl was called up to read a passage. She walked jumping and swinging her arms, and moved to the place in front of her teacher. It seemed that she’s a kind of person who cannot sit-still. The teacher gave Dorothy some reading and listened to her in a matter-of-fact manner. Dorothy’s very focus on the reading but sometimes she’d kick her leg now and then. From observing this incident, I can tell Dorothy might be a kinetic learner. At another special occasion, I met her mom. Then I knew Dorothy was attending a ballet class a short time ago. Recently Dorothy was selected by her ballet teacher to perform on stage. This helps me confirm that my first guess was right. Dorothy is a kinetic learner.

Is your child a tactile/kinetic learner?

Just like we did before for checking out spatial/visual learners. As below, I have listed some important and significant traits of a tactile/kinetic learner. You can just put 0, 1 or 2 to each trait. (0= not like my child at all, 1=partially like my child, 2=very much like my child.) The higher you score, the more likely your child is a kinetic learner.

• find it difficult to sit still for long periods of time
• easily distracted by activity around them
• like doing sports, dance, drama, or physical exercises
• like hands-on, concrete activities such as role play, model building
• need to touch things in order to learn more about them
• have good coordination
• best ideas and energy will come when engaging in some physical activities
• like spending free time outdoors
• frequently use hand gestures or other forms when talking with someone
• need to learn a new skill through doing rather than simple reading about it or seeing someone demonstrating it

Tips for parenting tactile/kinetic children:

1. Let them use physical actions to approach learning something instead of asking them to listen to lectures or long explanations.
2. When they read, they can’t sit still. So allow them to have some body movement, like walking around.
3. Let them act out the story while listening to it. Without acting, they have difficulty in absorbing and understanding the information.
4. Take time to play and work with them. It’s hard for them to read, write or think on their own.
5. Sign them up for some sports.
6. Give them a hug. Let them “feel” your love for them.

Sometimes kinetic learners are misunderstood as people who have ADHD as it seems that they cannot sit still and focus on work quietly.

Related articles:

When A Kid Learns

Is Your Child A Spatial/Visual Learner?

Is Your Child An Auditory Learner?

Is Your Child A Logical Learner?

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 15th, 2006 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Education, Learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.