Spatial Learners

Posted by Montserrat | 1 comment

See this girl right here?

She is a natural born artist. Constantly doodling on her papers, is drawn to colors, can SEE more than just green, yellow, blue, and red, she loves pictures! When she was little and we would read books to her, she really didn’t care about what the book was about she wanted to know all about the pictures.

Spatial learners are very visual. They are drawn not only to photos and pictures but to graphs, charts, movies, visual puzzles, using their imagination, and color.

If your child can read maps, charts, and diagrams more easily that text, enjoys art activities, likes to view movies, slides, or other visual presentations, doodles on workbooks, worksheets, or other materials, enjoys doing puzzles, mazes, Where’s Waldo? or similar visual activities, draws figures that are advanced for their age, and yes, even daydreams more than their peers, chances are you have a spatial (or visual) learner on your hands.

Some materials and/or techniques that can be used to teach spatial learners are:

* telescopes, microscopes, and binoculars
* visual puzzles and mazes
* 3-D construction kits
* charts, graphs, diagrams, and maps
* visualization
* photography
* videos, slides, and movies
* art appreciation
* painting, collage, visual arts
* idea sketching
* visual thinking exercises
* graphic symbols
* using mind-maps and other visual organizers
* computer graphics software
* visual awareness activities
* optical illusions
* imaginative storytelling
* picture metaphors
* creative daydreaming
* color cues

Now that my daughter is older (12) she is learning to incorporate other study habits that will be more helpful for her when she gets to college. Here are some of the things she does to learn:

* Writes down things she wants to remember using different colors. She also uses a great number of details when writing things down.
* Creates her own flashcards and makes them visually appealing to her. Borders around the edges, flowers or hearts instead of certain letters, etc.
* When in a lecture she tries to look directly at the person who is speaking to help her focus (instead of daydreaming).
* Before reading a chapter in a textbook she’ll scan and look at all the pictures first, then read the headings, then read the chapter.
* Highlighting important information with lots of various colors also helps her to remember concepts.

Other posts in this series:
Learning Styles: The Basics (http://heartofthematteronline.com/learning-styles-the-basics/)
Learning Styles: The Basics, Part II, Multiple Intelligences (http://heartofthematteronline.com/learning-styles-the-basics-part-two/)
Linguistic, Read, Write Learners (http://heartofthematteronline.com/linguistic-read-write-learners/)
Kinesthetic/Tactile Learners (http://heartofthematteronline.com/kinesthetictactile-learners/)

Montserrat Wadsworth is completely devoted to her wonderful husband, Joseph, and their eight children (seven girls and one boy!). They live on a 4,000 acre alfalfa farm nestled in a small Northern Nevada valley. They’ve been homeschooling for 11+ years. Montserrat enjoys, photography, cooking, crafting, chocolate, and sloppy goodnight kisses. She strives to live each day as God would have her do following Mary’s biblical supplication, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” (Luke 1:38) You can find her at her blog Chocolate On My Cranium.