How Visual and Auditory Work Together
As I stated in a previous post, everyone has their own unique repertoire of learning styles. For many people visual and auditory learning often go hand in hand rather than oppose one another. Many people will remember more of a topic if the presentation includes both great visuals and good explanation. However, how each brain processes the very same presentation varies widely. Some people latch onto the visuals the most and then process the words associated with the visuals. Other people process the verbal information first and then attach the corresponding visuals. Even others might process the information equally. I am one of those people that will remember more of a topic is it is presented with both formats. However, I usually process the visuals first and then attach the corresponding words. This makes me a great note-taker because I will remember what I write down plus what was said about what I wrote. I actually can visually see my notes in my mind after studying over them for just a little while. The visual presence of my notes in my head triggers the verbal information stored with that visual.
For people who latch onto the verbal messages more than the visual messages, they will actually hear the conversations or presentations in their mind. These verbal remembrances will trigger the corresponding visual images that went with them. Some people can actually work this both ways in different settings. For example, if a presentation included more verbal information than visual information sometimes my brain will flip how I process the information. The same holds true for me in music situations. If I hear a song before I see the music, sometimes my ear will take over in the learning process. However, for me visual usually trumps auditory in most cases. If the written music does not match what my ear is telling me to do, the eye usually wins the argument.
Learning Your Own Learning Style
Why is it important to know how you process the information? Is it not good enough just the process the information? Knowing your own learning style puts you in a greater position to retain more information. If you know that auditory learning is higher in your repertoire than visual learning, you can use tools like books on CD/tape to help yourself learn more in a class/training situation. If visual learning is higher on your personal list, you need to read the actual book with all its illustrations and visuals to get the greatest benefit. This can also help you make wise choices for all those training hours everyone has to do in almost every profession these days. We all like to use our time wisely. Therefore, we can seek out those training opportunities offered in our more dominant learning styles.
Promoting Auditory Skills - Finding Auditory Learners
Our present society actually does a poor job of promoting auditory skills. If you think about it, we really do not expect people to truly listen to us in most cases. The presentation methods for classes, trainings, etc. has become more and more visual with every passing year. This is great for those people with highly developed visual learning, but not so good for those people that have auditory learning high in their personal repertoire. How can we fix that? Promoting auditory skills comes in very high on my to-do list for children today. Even if they do not have auditory learning high in their repertoire, they still need to be able to listen to some degree. At my childcare I usually present information both visually and orally simultaneously. However, I do have a few activities that I do strictly verbally. I have several reasons for these particular activities. Number one, they help me weed out those children that do or do not have auditory learning high in their repertoire. This helps me when I do the one-on-one instruction with these children. Those children that excel at those strictly oral activities can follow my verbal instructions better. I will tend to present their information more orally in order to develop their more dominant learning style. Those children that struggle with the strictly oral activities must have their information presented by another format.
The Lack of Auditory Experiences
The second reason I do the strictly verbal activities comes from the lack of these types of experiences in our present culture. One hundred or so years ago, all societies relied much more on verbal information than visual information. Radio instead of television comprised the majority of people's entertainment. Before radio, telling stories and conversations around the dinner table comprised the majority of entertainment in households. This tended to promote a greater overall competency in processing verbal information. It is like muscles. What you use is what tends to become stronger. Storytelling and the art of conversation has fallen by the wayside in recent years. For our children, this means that their listening skills and verbal skills suffer. We need to bring back the storytelling without pictures. We also need to bring back times of uninterrupted conversations if we want our children to become better listeners and communicators.
Developing Visualization Skills
The final reason I do the strictly verbal activities actually has to do with preliteracy skills. When a child reaches the stage of reading where the pictures are taken away and only words remain, that child must be able to picture the words in his/her head. It stands to reason that a child that has had numerous opportunities to listen to information without pictures will be able to make this transition much easier. This is a reading comprehension skill, and American children as a whole have seen reading comprehension scores drop continually over the last 50 years. This corresponds to the rise in the dominance of visuals in our culture. That is no coincidence. Giving preschool children the opportunity to process strictly oral information actually should be a national undertaking to improve our educational system. It is that important.
Auditory Activities for Preschoolers
Now let us bring it down to the practical. What kind of activities should be included for children that have auditory learning high in their personal repertoire? Games like Simon Says or any other game that relies on strictly listening should be high on your list. Read stories that have no pictures from time to time. I have two blogs full of stories that can be used for this purpose. They are located at https://summerbug1226.blogspot.com and https://nataroo38.blogspot.com. These blogs are designed for the children to hear the stories without pictures, and then for the children to draw pictures for the story. I do post pictures sent to me by children of all ages on the blogs. Another idea can be to utilize older relatives to come in and tell stories like they used to have told to them as children. Those of us that are older often take for granted that children are told these stories, but they are not. It might be difficult for the children to listen at first, but soon they will sit as starry-eyed as their ancestors did at the feet of great storytellers. You can also teach children quite a bit by putting lists of informations to a rhythm. At my childcare, I teach the books of the Bible this way. It is how I taught my own children when they were little, and I have incorporated it into our daily schedule. If you do not want to do the books of the Bible, you could teach them the names of the states and capitals or any other list of information. The point does not lie in the list itself so much as in learning information in an auditory manner. If they do it in preschool, they might be able to learn lists of things using this technique later in school when that becomes necessary. Remember preschool is all about exposure and making those brain connections.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!!
Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
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