Learning Styles & How to Use Them
1
Auditory learners-- learn by listening to verbal instructions, remember by forming the
sounds of words. You find it easy to remember names but forget faces. You often do well
working out solutions or problems by talking them out.
In most circumstances you need to hear yourself say it in order to effectively commit
it to memoryyou may find yourself reading aloud instead of reading silently, talking to
yourself, or repeating instructions to make sure you understand them. Ask questions of the
professor in order to gain understanding. Ask follow-up questions if necessary; the
discussion cements the information for you.
You are easily distracted by noise and often need to work where it is relatively quiet.
However, you benefit from listening to lectures, dialogues, and plays; using audio
recordings and videos, etc.; participating in group discussions; and interacting in
listening/speaking exchanges.
Study helps: attend classes, discussions and tutorials.
Your notes may be poor because you prefer to listen. Expand them by talking with
others and collecting notes from the textbook. Consider finding a note-taking-study-
partner in each class who will be your back up for filling in things you missed in class.
Put facts or dates into a song, a rap, or a rhythm to aid memorization.
Record class lectures. Make your own audio recordings by reading your notes and
textbook information onto a recorder. Review these recordings in your car or on a
headset, whenever you can, to be ready for a test. Use recorded books whenever
possible.
When studying by yourself, read textbooks and notes out loud. Repeat facts with you
eyes closed.
Join a study group or study with a partner to review information, notes, texts, etc.
Test helps: imagine talking with the examinerlisten to your voices and write down the
answers; spend time in quiet places recalling the ideas; practice writing answers to old
exam questions; speak your answers aloud or inside your head.
Best Test Types for Auditory Learners: writing responses to lectures; oral exams.
Worst Test Types: reading passages and writing answers about them in a timed test.
Learning Styles & How to Use Them
2
Visual learners-- learn by seeing and watching; use strong visual associations. You
often use lists to organize your life and your thoughts. Plus, when spelling, you
recognize words by how they look. You remember faces but forget names.
You usually learn best by associating pictures with the words or concepts
being used. You benefit when visuals are used as part of a lecture (whiteboard,
transparencies, Power-point, films, videos, maps, charts, posters, graphs, etc.)
Demonstrations by the professor are helpful, as are textbooks with pictures and
diagrams.
You often have a well-developed imagination and are easily distracted by
movement or action in the classroom. However, noise will probably not distract
you.
You may not prefer to learn in study groups. Rather when studying, you tend
to like to work alone in a quiet room.
Study helps: use brightly colored folders for categorizing papers or eye-catching
notebooks for organizing assignments.
1. Take notes; make lists; copy everything on the board.
2. Use highlighter pens to color code information.
3. Make flashcards or use the computer to organize material that needs to be
memorized into tables, charts or spreadsheets with graphics.
4. As much as possible, translate words and ideas into outlines, symbols, pictures,
and diagrams, or summarize the information into key phrases or sequences.
Replace words with symbols or initials
5. Highlight key words or pictures on the note cards; then, put the information in
prominent places to review.
6. Read over your notes repeatedly until you see the notes on the page.
7. Reduce auditory clutter.
Test helps: practice turning your visuals back into words or write out sample exam
answers; redraw your notes or study pages from memory; draw things, use
diagrams; place them in highly visible places for easy reviewing.
Best Test Types for Visual Learners: diagramming, reading maps, essays (if youve
studied using an outline), showing a process
Worst Test Types: listen and respond tests
Learning Styles & How to Use Them
3
Kinesthetic learners-- learn by becoming physically involved and actually doing
something with whats being learned. Hands-on activity is needed to get the learning to
stick! Being on the move helps your memory to work.
In the classroom, you benefit from physical activity, in-class demonstrations, hands-
on student learning experiences, and professors who give real-life examples. Using large
diagrams, floor/wall puzzles and large maps on the wall or floor are helpful. Charades,
acting, interviewing, pantomiming, skits, and role-playing enhance learning.
Laboratories, field trips, trial-and-error assignments, and fieldwork done outside the
classroom promote more interest.
Study helps: sit near the front of the room and take notes throughout the class period to
help you stay focused. Later on, straighten out incomplete sentences and spelling errors in
your notes. The idea is to get down key words and draw conclusions.
Talk about your notes with another kinesthetic person. You will remember the real
things that happened. Put plenty of examples in your summaries.
Study in 20 minute time intervals, with 510 minute breaks.
Use case studies and applications to help with understanding principles and abstract
concepts. Pictures and photographs help to illustrate ideas also.
Put your homework on a clipboard and do it on the run. Or put test material on
flashcards made out of index cards and review the class material while walking the
stairs in the dorm/pacing in your own room.
Use memory games.
Associate some sort of bodily movement with what needs to be remembered. To learn
a sequence of events, processes, or procedures, make 3x 5 flashcards for each part.
Arrange the cards on a table top in the correct order until it becomes automatic. Or
assign sequenced information to individual steps as you walk up and down stairs.
Test prep may include: writing practice answers/paragraphs, charades, acting,
pantomiming, or skits. Role-play the exam situation in your own room.
Test helps: when reviewing new information, copy key points onto a chalkboard or other
large writing surface; use the computer to organize the information into graphics, tables,
spreadsheets, etc., listen to audio tapes on a Walkman tape player while exercising; make
your own tapes and use them for review.
Best Test Types for Kinesthetic Learners: short definitions, fill-ins, multiple choice.
Worst Test Types: long tests, essays.
Learning Styles & How to Use Them
4
Read/Write learners: learn by reading and writing. You believe the meaning is within the
words, so while talking is OK, something written is easier to access.
You like words and lists; therefore, use lists, headings, and definitions to aid memorization of
material.
Your notes are key study tools for you. Essays are also a productive way for you to receive
input. Dictionaries, glossaries, textbooks, handouts, and manuals are all user-friendly.
Study helps: write out the words again and again; read your notes (silently) again and again.
A. Rewrite the ideas and principles into other words.
B. Organize any diagrams, graphs, etc. into statements, e.g. The trend is. . .
C. Turn reactions, actions, diagrams, and charts into words.
D. Imagine your lists arranged in multiple-choice questions and distinguish each from each.
Test helps: write exam answers; practice with multiple-choice questions; write paragraphs,
beginnings and endings; write lists (a,b,c,d,1,2,3,4); arrange words into hierarchies and points.
Multimodal learners: 5070% of people fit into this category. You are among those who have a
mixture of learning preferences, such as: two, three, or even four strong preferences!
This means that when you are in class, you can choose more easily to match the mode being
used by your instructors.
Study helps: read the study helps already given for your preferred learning styles.
o Dont be surprised if it is necessary for you to use more than one strategy for learning and
communicating.
Information compiled by Eidene Anderson, Coordinator of The Learning Center CBC July 2007
Auditory Strength, www.geocities.com/~educationplace/aud.html Accessed June 30, 2005.
Fleming, Grace. Your Guide to Homework/Study Tips
http://homeworktips.about.com/od/homeworkhelp/a/learningstyle.htm , Accessed February 15, 2006.
Fleming, Neal. Aural Study Strategies, www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=aural Accessed July 13, 2005.
________ Kinesthetic Study Strategies, www.varklearn.com/english/page.asp?p=kinestheticprint Accessed July 13,
2005.
________ Multimodal Study Strategies, www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=multimodal Accessed July 2, 2005.
________ Read/Write Study Strategies, www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=readwrite Accessed July 13, 2005.
________ Visual Study Strategies, www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=visual Accessed July 13, 2005.
Kinesthetic Activities, www.geocities.com/~educationplace/kinact.html Accessed June 30, 2005.
LeFever, Marlene D. Learning Styles. Colorado Springs: Cook Publishing Company, 1995.Miller, Suzanne.The Four
Learning Styles in the DVC Survey, www.metamath.com/lsweb/fourls.htm Accessed July 13, 2005.
Tobias, Cynthia Ulrich. The Way They Learn. Colorado Springs: Focus on the Family, 1994.
