Your child is preparing a presentation. One sketches a diagram straight away, another reads several articles before writing, a third rehearses the topic out loud. Everyone has their own habits for learning. Does that mean you should find your child’s learning style? Research calls for caution, and above all points to learning how to learn.
What are learning styles?
A learning style is the way a person prefers to take in and process information. The idea has been popular since the 1970s and dozens of models have been proposed. Two are especially well known to parents and teachers.
- The VAK model (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic): a child would learn better by seeing, by listening or by doing.
- Kolb’s 4 learning styles: in 1984, the American psychologist David Kolb described a learning cycle in four stages, from which four profiles are drawn, often called the dreamer, the thinker, the decider and the doer.
Kolb’s learning cycle
For Kolb, we learn by going through four stages, in an order that can vary:
- concrete experience: living through a situation, trying something out;
- observation and reflection: stepping back, thinking about what happened;
- conceptualisation: drawing a rule, a theory, a general principle from it;
- active experimentation: applying that rule to a new situation.
The value of this cycle lies less in the profiles than in a simple idea: a concept is better understood once it has been experienced, thought through, put into words and then applied. A pupil who stops at the theory, or who does exercise after exercise without ever understanding the rule, learns only partly.
The 4 learning styles: dreamer, thinker, decider, doer
Depending on the stage where each person feels most at ease, four learning styles are described:
- The dreamer thinks before acting. They observe, imagine several solutions and like to link the material to concrete examples. They need time.
- The thinker wants to understand why. They like facts, concepts, order and complex problems.
- The decider wants to link theory to practice. They like to plan, move forward step by step and see what what they learn is for.
- The doer learns by trying. They are happy to jump in, enjoy group work and like a challenge.
You will probably recognise your child in one or two of these portraits. That is normal: nobody belongs to a single style, and preferences change with age, subject and situation.
What research says
Nobody disputes that children have preferences. The real question is different: does a child learn better when taught in “their” style? Researchers call this the meshing hypothesis.
In 2008, four cognitive psychologists (Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer and Bjork) reviewed the studies on the subject. Their conclusion: there is not enough evidence to justify testing pupils’ learning styles and adapting teaching accordingly. The few well-designed studies showed no effect.
In other words, a “visual” child does not remember a geography lesson better in pictures than in text, if the material lends itself equally well to both. It is rather the content that dictates the best format: a map is understood by looking at it, a pronunciation by listening to it, a technical skill by practising it.
The risk of a label is real: a child convinced they are “kinaesthetic” may end up believing they cannot learn by reading. Learning styles therefore remain a good starting point for talking about how your child works, without putting them in a box.
Learning how to learn: what really works
The good news is that research has identified techniques that help almost all pupils, whatever their profile. In 2013, a major review (Dunlosky and colleagues) ranked ten of them by effectiveness. Two stand out.
1. Test yourself instead of rereading
Rereading and highlighting give a feeling of mastery, but do little to help memory. Asking yourself questions, covering the lesson and reciting it, redoing an exercise without looking at the answer: this memory effort, called active recall, anchors the material far more firmly.
- flashcards with a question on the front and the answer on the back;
- “explain the lesson to me” at dinner, without the notebook;
- old tests or exercises redone from scratch.
2. Spread studying over time
Three twenty-minute sessions spread over a week are better than one hour the night before the test. Reviewing material just as you start to forget it makes it stick for good. This is the principle of spaced repetition.
3. Mix and explain
Other techniques have a more moderate but useful effect:
- asking yourself “why is this true?” while studying;
- explaining the material in your own words, to someone else or to yourself;
- mixing several types of exercises instead of doing the same one twenty times.
This is where Kolb’s cycle makes full sense: doing, reflecting, understanding the rule, applying it. Rather than looking for your child’s style, help them go through all these stages. You will find more practical advice in our article 5 tips to study and pass your exams.
How to help your child at home
- Watch how they work, without judging, and talk about it together: what helps, what gets in the way?
- Encourage them to vary their approach: a diagram, an explanation out loud, an exercise.
- Replace “reread your lesson” with “tell me what you remember”.
- Help them plan short review sessions spread over several days.
- Praise effort and method, not just the grade.
If the diversity of talents interests you, our article on the 8 types of intelligence looks at it from another angle, that of Howard Gardner.
A coach to learn how to learn
At My Sherpa, an educational advisor chooses a coach suited to your child’s needs. The coach observes how your child works, builds on what works for them and trains them in proven techniques. With study skills tutoring or private tutoring, at home anywhere in Belgium or online, your child learns how to learn, a skill that will serve them throughout their schooling.
