Teaching kinesthetic learners; characteristics ideas and strategies

Kinesthetic learners are often misunderstood and told that they need to “sit still” in class.  Their inability to do so may appear to be a behavioral problem, but that’s just exaggeration. Simply put, kinesthetic learners need to move to be able to learn!

In the best UAE schools, it’s a common sight to see auditory, visual and kinesthetic learners within the same classroom. Teachers recognize the different strengths and weaknesses of students and work around them to help students learn. Once teachers recognize characteristics of kinesthetic learners in primary school, it’s up to the best schools and the most competent teachers to help them out! 

 If you’re looking for ways to enhance the learning of your kinesthetic learner, American primary schools in Dubai should be your first choice! The best schools know how to handle different learning styles!  The article below explains some tips, ideas, and strategies to help your early age learner get through with kinesthetic learning! 

Eight characteristics of kinesthetic learners:

It’s important to identify kinesthetic learners in their early years in order to workaround teaching methodologies and to allow them an equal learning opportunity. Look for the following kinesthetic learner’s characteristics if you’re unsure about your child’s way of learning:

• Tend to learn faster through touching, tasting, and spelling
• They daydream
• Express thoughts with their hands and body
• Are overwhelmed by wordiness
• Work or play alone or with a specific friend
• Can integrate parts
• They possess the ability to construct 3D images( from different perspectives)
•   They have the control needed for athletics, building things, etc.
• They need to make physical contact

Teaching strategies and ideas:

Focus on the “how” of the concept. How it feels, works, functions, might help the child learn. Use concrete activities or visual information to help them learn. Maintain physical proximity as they tend to need physical proximity.

When you’re reading out stories, ask students to draw out the scenes. Once the reading session is over, ask the children to explain what they’ve drawn, write summaries or create a comic out of it.  You can also ask children to recall a recent story they read or heard and create pictures out of it. Creating a picture book out of it and acting it out can pique their interest too! 

Create an interesting presentation for children. Early primary students can be taught using cartoons, animations, and puppet shows. For science subjects, 3D models are excellent ways to help children learn. There is no other way they can envision all the different bones in the body!

To help sentence formation in primary level students, provide them pictures. Hand them strips of paper with sentences written on them, describing the pictures. Get the children to work in pairs to complete tasks.

Language skills

For vocabulary and spelling let the children create alphabets with their limbs and their bodies. Get children to spell our words using their bodies and use board games such as scrabble to learn words being studied in class.

Mathematics skills

Use food, to teach them basic yet critical concepts such as addition, multiplication, etc. Use different material to help them learn about measurements. Use dice as class props for concepts of probability

Take away!

Kinesthetic learns maybe thought of as having learning difficulties so firstly it’s important to identify their learning needs and work around them to help children learn. If you’re looking for tips to help out your kinesthetic learner, read the tips above. If you’re looking for a more permanent learning solution, opt for the best American primary school in Dubai that works with your early age learner and helps them out based on their specific needs!