Customised Learning: The magic mantra!

Customised Learning: The magic mantra! 

Childhood is blissful and parenting is a creative art. When we, today’s millennial parents, are blessed with our little angels, we at times go overboard by expecting to make them superheroes striving to make them excel in all fields. Is this wrong? Absolutely not, our children do have the capability of exceling in many fields. If only we had a magic mantra! But all parents do have a magic mantra with them which even they are at times oblivious to. So today, I’m going to open your own power to you. 

Parenting starts from the time the child is born and we become the backbone of their journey. We hand hold our child when she takes her first steps; teach her how to eat , read, write; even help her in her first bicycle experience. Then how can we leave her in this vast world of obtaining knowledge alone? When the targets are big, and the time is short, the approach has to be strategic and with the times.

Today’s is a world of customised solutions, then why not customise the “learning” for your child as well. Strange, as it may sound, but it’s true. Every child has her unique learning style and it’s up to the parent how to use her unique learning style effectively for getting best results. Believe you me, nobody else is better equipped to do it for your child than you yourself. Nobody else understands the unspoken, the unexpressed and the uncomprehended truths about your child than you yourself.  Nobody has more fire in their belly to see your child succeed then you yourself. Nobody can surpass all limits to bring your child on top than you yourself. Then who would you choose to be your child’s best mentor when you are looking for nothing but the best for your child? It’s time to take the command in your own hands and show your child how to conquer the world. 

First and foremost, identify your child’s inherent learning style. There are several theories but let me keep it as simple and easy to understand as possible. There are five basic styles of learning – Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing, Physical and Social. Your prime role as a parent is to observe your child in various circumstances and situations and try to understand how she picks up a new piece of information most effectively. 

Is she grasping most effectively by seeing and watching or when you explain with drawings? If yes, then her natural learning style is ‘Visual’. Then the best teaching instruments that would yield best results are picture books, maps, web charts, Venn diagrams, charts, graphs, flow charts, labelled diagrams, symbolic arrows, circles, hierarchies, pictographs, videos and other devices used to represent what could have been presented in words. 

If she retains more information just by overhearing others’ conversations, remembers answers to difficult questions when you read it out to her or listening to audio recordings, then her instinctive learning style is ‘Auditory’. The easiest methodology here is to make sure they attend their lectures regularly. Just by listening attentively, half their job is done. Following it up with one to one discussion / chat, group discussions, audio tapes, telephonic discussions, etc. will do the rest of the job. Basically, the mantra here is to listen, listen and listen. 

Another style is Reading/Writing which essentially means text based information input and output. Children having this learning style are best able to assimilate information when Information is displayed as words. This includes all forms books, manuals, reports, essays, and assignments. Your child might be termed as studious or a book worm but the fact of the matter is that this is her inherent learning style. Luckily it suits the child most as it is the classical way of imparting knowledge in school – the text book method.

If your child prefers gathering information through experience and practice, then her inherent learning style is Kinesthetic or in simple words Physical. She would learn best by hands on experience. The best tools in your toolbox here are cards, games, props, puppets, experiments, demonstrations, simulations, case studies, videos and movies. It would make a lot of sense to choose a school that follows experiential pedagogy.

We, however, cannot undermine the importance of another important learning style which is ‘Social’. Small children often form a parent, teacher, sibling or friend as their role model and start adopting all good as well as bad attributes of their role model knowingly or unknowingly. This can be very risky because the child is not using her intelligence. I personally feel, kids need to be counselled to make their own personality based on their own likes and dislikes rather than trying to be like someone else. 

Now that you have identified your child’s inherent learning style, does that mean that your child will always be weak in other styles? No, it’s not that your child has only one style and the rest are missing. It’s a mix, a complex overlap with one dominating style. It just means that her natural learning style is like the best weapon in her armour, her trump card, and will come in handy in the most difficult of topics giving results with least possible effort. Other styles have to be slowly built some from scratch if they are totally missing, which is very rare, or from the stage they are. So, if your child’s visual style is at level five, maybe her auditory style is at level one. We can maximise results by using her most dominant learning style simultaneously building all the other styles from the level they are at with all consciousness. The fact remains, if the child knows what her natural learning style is, she can use it as her most powerful weapon when needed. 

Her unique learning style will not just help her academically but will also help her choose her hobbies and extra-curriculars. With the support of her dominant learning style her rate of success in every field is very high. For example, a child with dominant visual learning style can remember her speech better if she visualises it as a flow chart. Being aware of one’s inherent learning style would help a person all his life, be it office or household. It builds confidence to be able to achieve goals in every field. 

So, next time your child is struggling with a particular concept, step back and re-think. Instead of pushing her harder and in the process demoralising her, suggest her to shift the methodology for understanding the same concept using tools from her inherent style and see the magic! 

Happy Parenting! 

Nirmit Sinha Goel

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