Visual Spatial Learners Part II

Some

Illustrated by Buck Jones
All rights reserved. Copyright 2002

Continuing from our last post about Visual Spatiel Learners, here are some characteristics of VSL’s taken from Visual Spatial Resource.

• Does your child remember what is seen
  but forget what is heard?
• Does your child have a vivid imagination?
• Can your child visualize objects from
  multiple perspectives?
• Does your child enjoy solving puzzles and mazes?
  

These are children who would rather spend the day
with a new box of LEGOs than do nearly anything
else in the world. Kids who can get so absorbed in
creative play, they lose all sense of time.

Often labeled unorganized, unfocused, poor spellers
or worse, visual-spatial learners can be
equal parts pleasure and frustration
to parent. 

If you go to the above linked site there is a quiz the parents and child can take to see if you might be a VSL.

I had Zachary take this quiz.  One of the questions asked the child, "On a scale of 1-10, "how often do you think in word pictures?".  Zachary marked this as a nine, I believe. 

When I started thinking about it I realized how true this was.  Very often, when someone does not understand something he’ll explain it to them using a word picture.  Because of this, he is excellent at teaching others.  He knows how to simplify the thought so that others can understand. 

I usually come up with word pictures that I have to tweak or change in the middle of my explanation because it’s not really fitting to the situation.  Often he’ll take over because he’ll have a much better "picture" in mind.

I’ve always disliked labels; I didn’t see any need for them.  I thought all kids were created equally but just learned in different ways.  Now,  I’m rethinking this.  God has made each child with different gifts and abilities.  Each one has a different role to play.  Maybe a child will have problems in a certain area so that they can develop certain character qualities (such as perseverance and humility) or to become more dependent on God instead of their own self.  In Zachary’s case he’s always creatively thinking "outside the box".

Instead of being frustrated with the child because they’re "just not  getting it" we can learn to appreciate their abilities and let them be what God made them.