Homeschool & Learning Styles

What's your child's learning style?
One of the most important things you need to establish when you start homeschooling your children is to determine their learning style. You see, we don't learn the same way. Our learning style will depend on several factors, such as our personality and background. As the song says, there are "different strokes for different folks". Even in your own family, your children may not all have the same learning style.

It is also interesting to note that the prevalent method of teaching in schools (textbook and teaching by lecture) is not effective for a considerable number of students, as this method of teaching does not match their learning style. You should also note that one common mistake is using your own learning style as a basis for your teaching style. However, you need to discover your child's own learning style in order to ensure that his learning is at its optimum level.

3 Major Learning Styles
There are three main categories of learning style and not all pupils fall neatly into one style. Usually, people learn using a combination of the two or all three learning styles. It's just there is a stronger predisposition for one particular learning method.
The three major styles are: visual (learning by seeing or reading), tactile or kinesthetic (learning by doing, hands-on) or auditory (learning by hearing, i.e. lectures).

Utilizing the right teaching style is an advantage with homeschooling, as compared to schools where a teacher has to utilize a combination of these styles to cater to all the students.

Online education and Learning Styles
Once you've discovered your child's learning style, you should pattern the day's activities and lessons bases on a particular style. This is particularly true if you are homeschooling using an online high school. For instance, you can add in hands-on projects with online high school courses.
One excellent source online high school classes would be The American Academy. The American Academy is an accredited online high school that provides over 100 high school courses to enable your child to earn enough credits to get a high school diploma.