Did you know that your learning style affects each part of your life – family, home, school, work, and all relationships?
Each person prefers to learn in different ways, and your preferred style will be guiding you in everything you do.
For example, if you’re in school, the big secret that most people don’t know is that school tends to cater to just one learning style.
Always remember this: Everyone has an extraordinary capacity to learn in many different ways.
There are 3 different learning styles.
Each style is a gift, and once you know how you learn best, you can use this to your advantage at work, in school, or at home.
To understand what a learning style is, and how it affects your life, first you need to find out how you learn best.
How Do You Learn Best?
Do you like to soak up new information through pictures, sounds, or in some physical way through your feelings or touch?
How about when you recall what you have learned?
Do you see images in your mind, hear the words of what you learned, or physically re-create the information?
Different learning styles do this in unique ways.
A learning style is simply a preference for the method by which you learn, remember what you learned and how you apply that learning.
These 3 different learning styles are visual or picture, auditory or hearing, and kinesthetic or tactile.
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Take the Learning Styles Quiz to Find Out How You Learn Best
To find out the different learning styles you prefer, click to take the Personal Learning Styles Quiz
Then come back to this article to read about each type of learning style and how it affects your life.
What Are the Three Primary Learning Styles?
The 3 different learning styles are:
Visual
The visual person thinks in pictures.
He or she has a timeline in their mind and can easily recall things they’ve read by looking up and seeing the material on an inner blackboard or a movie in their mind.
The visual person likes to write things down, keep an eye on how they look, and will say things like, “I get the picture or talk about their ‘perspective.’
They don’t like long meetings where someone is just talking and does not use any visual references or cues.
Auditory
The auditory person learns best by listening.
This is why they make great conversationalists and can tell stories with the best of them.
An auditory person can remember what you said to them today five years ago.
And they recall it verbatim!
Kinesthetic
The kinesthetic or tactile learner likes to interact with what they are learning.
They love to move around a lot, touch, and play with things, and when they put things together, they rarely read the directions.
Kinesthetic people do not have a timeline in their minds.
Generally, a kinesthetic learner is a kind of “right now” sort of person who is not especially happy “seat sitting” in school or long meetings.
They are at their best when moving, playing sports or building things!
Although some books report as many as 12 or 13 types of intelligences, there are only three main learning styles, and the others fit into sub-categories of these.
One way learning styles can help you is when you take new courses. Find the types of courses that work best for your style.
The reason different learning styles affect your life so much is that they are somewhat like your personality, and reveal how you process and share information.
So, for example, if your friend, also your roommate, is a high visual, picture learner, he or she will be neat and organized and do things according to a timeline in their mind.
Now, if that high visual roommate happens to have a high kinesthetic roomie, guess what?
The kinesthetic roommate will not be neat and organized and tend to be much more impulsive.
While that can be attractive in the beginning, ultimately, unless you understand each other’s different learning styles, you will get on each other’s nerves.
Your relationship as roommates may not fare well.
The good news is, if you take the Learning Styles Quiz before you move in together, you can determine your compatibility better and come to an understanding of each other’s strengths and different learning styles.
So, it’s an excellent idea for everyone to take the Learning Styles Quiz to find out how different learning styles affect your life.
Once you take the quiz, share it with all your friends, your co-workers, and your family members.
Knowing about the different learning styles will help you have a full new understanding of each other and can improve relationships.
Here is How to Identify the 3 Different Learning Styles by the Way a Person Speaks
To improve your life in school, home, and work, one thing you’ll want to do is carefully listen to the specific descriptor words a person uses when talking.
The words people with different learning styles choose simply reflect what is going on in their brain and how they process information.
Visual Learning Style – “I see. I get the picture. What is your perspective? Let’s focus on this.”
This learner uses “camera type words” to demonstrate how they process information – images, much like a movie in their mind as they process new and previously learned information.
Auditory Learning Style – “I hear ya, that rings a bell, that clicks.”
This learner uses “sound words” to process information.
Kinesthetic – Physical Learning Style – “I feel, get a grip, I think I grasp the concept, I get it.”
This learner uses “physical words” to demonstrate how they are processing information in their brain.
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Pay very close attention to the type of verbs and predicates you or your child, student or co-worker, uses in any new learning situation.
It will give you a strong clue to how they process new information.
You will know which learning style they are choosing to use at that particular time by the descriptive words they use.
For example: “I see” means a person is using the visual learning style at that moment.
Here are the characteristics of the different learning styles.
Visual Learning Style
- Learns best by seeing
- Neat, orderly
- Speaks quickly, holds head up, shoulders erect
- Good long-range planners
- Good spellers
- Memorizes by strong visual associations
- Functions best with an overall view before proceeding
- Has trouble remembering verbal instructions unless written down
Auditory Learning Style
- Learns best through hearing
- Likes to listen to lectures, music, and others talking
- Good storytellers
- Talks to self
- Likes talking more than writing
- Are easily distracted by noise – generally can’t listen to someone talk on the phone and listen to another speak to them at same time
- Usually has problems with projects involving visualization
- Likes jokes better than comics
Kinesthetic – Physical Learning Style
- Learns best by doing and through movement
- Good athletes
- Speaks more slowly
- Responds to physical rewards
- Memorizes by moving around, walking, etc.
- Gestures a lot, clutter in work or living space
- Can’t sit still for long periods
- Uses action words when speaking
- Touches others to get their attention
- Wants to act things out and likes involved games
How Different Learning Styles Affect Relationships, Learning, Work, and School
So, given the characteristics of the different learning styles, it is interesting to see how these different learning styles affect your life.
In relationships, you’ll want to be more understanding when you are interacting with a person who has a different learning style than you do.
If that person is a mentor or a teacher, be sure to tell them that you prefer to learn in another style and see how you can accommodate that.
In family or romantic relationships, the same thing applies.
Work to understand the other person’s style and watch your relationship blossom.
Remember, all your friends, family, and co-workers have different learning styles, and the sooner you understand how they process information, the easier your relationships will be.
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Final tip: If you are in school, make sure you know that school caters to the visual learning style.
They require neatness, a timeline for deadlines, and you take written tests.
Visual learners already possess these traits, so school is easier for them, and they recall their information in the fastest possible way – a picture.
Remember, one picture is worth a thousand words. That is why recalling information on a test is faster and easier for the visual learner.
If you are not a visual learner, simply adopt some of those characteristics and strategies if you want school to be easier.
Learn to think in “movies” in your mind – recall information you are learning that way, and those written tests will be easier.
Finally, in the work world, each type of job requires a different learning style.
You won’t be happy sitting inside all day at a desk and working on the computer if you are a high kinesthetic person.
So take some time and determine what learning style is best fitted to the job you want.
I hope you found this article helpful and informative about the 3 different learning styles.
Do your results from the quiz match the descriptions of the styles here?
Do you think knowing your learning style has given you a better understanding of how you learn best?
Write in and let me know!
Pat Wyman is the CEO of HowtoLearn.com and an internationally noted brain coach known as America’s Most Trusted Learning Expert. She has helped over half a million people in schools and corporations such as Microsoft, Intel and Google improve their lives with her learning strategies, learning styles inventory and courses, such as Total Recall Learning™.
Her superpower is helping people learn, read and remember everything faster. Pat is the best-selling author of more than 15 books and is also a university instructor, mom and golden retriever lover!
[ Updated – September 24, 2020 ]
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