Teaching Strategies Help Students with Different Learning Styles

January 2010

North Salt Lake, Utah – The multi-sensory teaching methods found in Reading Horizons program are beneficial for instructing students of all learning styles.

For years, research has been conducted to explore how learning styles affect an individual's learning ability. According to school psychologist, Ann Logsdon, “When students are taught using techniques consistent with their learning styles, they learn more easily, faster and can retain and apply concepts more readily to future learning.” Since teachers can’t cater to each individual student, the best method for teaching students is through multi-sensory instruction, which combines two or more learning styles.

In Freed and Parson’s book Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World, the effects of neglecting multi-sensory instruction is illustrated: “Even such subjects as science and history, which are ripe for visualization and hands-on exploration, are often taught in this dry, boring, auditory fashion. The result: These subject areas attract only sequential children or those who can survive the presentation. …As our children are becoming more restless and more visual, their learning style is colliding with that of our teachers, who thrive on order, neatness, and repetition. …As the gap between the way teachers teach and the way students learn becomes wider, schools are failing our children at an increasing rate."

Multi-sensory instruction is also important for the success of students with learning disabilities. For example, language instruction for dyslexics must use visual and hands-on elements to be effective.

The multi-sensory Reading Horizons program has helped countless students of every learning style to successfully learn to read.