RESEARCH REVIEW: Learning Styles

From elementary schools to postsecondary programs, teaching techniques are basically the same: lectures, textbooks and exams. Some students thrive in this environment, while others are bored, confused, and ultimately left behind. The learners enrolled in adult literacy programs today were usually those whose learning styles were incompatible with their childhood instruction. Students who excel in a traditional academic environment tend to be visual learners who learn best from seeing and observing. Visual learners are usually "silent readers," while students who must move their lips or read aloud are most likely to be auditory learners. Students who move their lips or read aloud are often considered "slow" and they do not learn easily from instructional methods based on the needs of visual learners. Most individuals can be categorized as visual learners who learn from seeing, auditory learners who learn from hearing, or kinesthetic (or tactile-kinesthetic) learners who learn by doing. Adults who have not learned to read are typically not visual learners (Harmon, 1995). This generalization gives literacy providers an advantage in determining the learning styles of their students. It is important to recognize different styles in order to reach all the learners in an adult literacy class.

Experts on learning styles each have their own theories and nomenclatures for defining different styles, which may confuse the layperson. There is no one universal learning styles evaluation system. There are, rather, many different models, including the "4MAT System" (Hand, 1990) and the "Seven Intelligences" (Lazear, 1989). Whether learning styles are divided into three or 300 categories, the backbone of learning styles theories is the idea that no one style is better than another. A student with strong auditory skills may have a remarkable ability to pick up foreign languages by ear, while struggling with texts and workbooks. Learning styles focus on students' strengths, not their weaknesses.

Though no learning style indicates greater intelligence than another, some learning styles are better suited to traditional classroom techniques. Advocates of learning styles argue that the solution to reaching the majority of students is not to force students to learn according to traditional techniques, but to make the teaching techniques fit the needs of the students.

While there is not a universal test of learning styles, the recognition of different learning styles has certainly entered the basic consciousness of educators in many different fields. Learning styles experts tend to focus on children, but adult education providers have been applying the ideas in their programs as well. Adult students have skills and intelligences honed from their life experiences; these skills and intelligences are not traditionally recognized and do not reveal themselves in test scores.

The National Adult Literacy and Learning Disabilities Center (National ALLD Center) emphasizes that the key to effective teaching is to identify and apply techniques and methods that work with learners. The National ALLD Center's suggestions incorporate the concepts behind learning styles, including the following:

• build on strengths rather than repeating weaknesses
• teach new concepts by relating them to practical applications
• be creative and attempt to vary your teaching style
• use multisensory strategies to present material -- many learners must see, say, hear, and touch before they can develop full mental images that stick and make sense
• vary your lessons, reteaching and reviewing in varieties of ways
• respect different learning styles
• change an activity when it's not working
• encourage the use of learning aids and tools (e.g., calculators, highlighter pens, extra worksheets, computerized learning programs, records, tape recorders, film, demonstration, maps, charts, experiences, rulers)
• talk with learners about their learning process. Ask them what does and does not work for them.

Learning styles should not be considered an additional burden for teachers. For teachers who have more than a few learners, an individual analysis of every learner's personal style would be a massive undertaking, but this is not necessary. Rather, teacher education about learning style can be an impetus to branch out one's teaching repertoire and better accept learners' differences in the classroom. An appreciation of different student learning styles helps teachers understand different types of intelligence and their manifestations.

The Written Word, Vol. 17, No. 7, July 1995, "Matching Teaching Techniques to Different Styles in the Adult Education Classroom".
Harmon, C.D. (March/April 1995). Different strokes for different folk. Networks (West Virginia's Literacy and Adult Education Newsletter), p.7.
Hand, K. (October 1990). Style is a tool for students, too; and Jaouen, P. Fostering students' awareness of learning styles. Educational Leadership, (48), 2, p. 13-14.