Teaching the Right Brain Child

The classes by Dianne Craft that I went to at our homeschool convention here in Arizona, were so enlightening.  Dianne has many years of experience teaching children with disabilities.  You can read my post about Dianne Craft and struggling learners here.

She taught a few classes on how to recognize whether your child is a right brain or left brain child and how to teach the right brain child.  Here is an article from her website about Teaching the Right Brain Child.

Now for some notes of what I learned…

Some characteristics of right brain learners:

* Spontaneous

* Imaginative

* Intuitive (understands reading material, even if he doesn’t know all of the words)

* Visual (pictures, drawn or made mentally, make retention of material much easier)

* Sees the “whole picture” (gets concepts more easily than the step-by-step details; learns phonics more easily when picture and color are attached to the phonemes)

* Color and pictures help in learning

* Left eye dominance more common

* “Hands on” learner

Some characteristics of left brain learners:

* Likes structure

* Mathematical (easily learns math facts)

* Analytical (needs all the information in order to come to a conclusion)

* Auditory (oral repetition of math facts and spelling words greatly helps in retention of material)

* Sees details more easily (likes phonics and step-by-step process required in math formulas)

*Learns easily in black and white

* Right eye dominance slightly more common

* “Book and workbook” auditory learner

Our brains work from right to left, left to right and I can’t remember the 3rd way. (top to bottom??)  For a child that is having difficulty with spelling, writing, memorizing math facts, reading, etc., their brain is not making the connections from the right side of the brain to the left side.  You must then adjust your teaching method in order to help these children.

This is so important – we must give them visual Velcro.  This will help them in any area they are struggling with.  It is much more time consuming than having them sit at their desk struggling to complete their work on their own and draining their energy level but as Dianne Craft said, “I know you’ll do it because you love your children.”

What is visual Velcro?  It’s using things like color, pictures, humor and since boys have more difficulties than girls, it usually gross. 🙂  Think of how Hollywood would do a film and that’s how you would approach it with your child.  Color, pictures, humor, stories & of course, being a little gross. (blood, gas… – you get the idea)

The information that really grabbed my attention was when she talked about helping your child with their spelling…

Everyone has the ability to have a photographic memory but right brain thinkers even more so.  To help them with spelling you are going to develop the photographic side of their memory and teach them to take pictures of their words.

The simplistic version is to:

1. Print off the most commonly used words from the Internet & use words that the student has misspelled for the spelling words

2. Give him an oral exam since many times they know the correct spelling of a word, it is just when they write it that some of the letters get mixed up

3. You will make cards with each word that he has missed written in black marker BUT for the letters he/she has missed you will write those in COLOR.  (remember right brain thinkers like color)

4. Now you will draw pictures on the letters he has missed.  The pictures do NOT have to be related to the word, you’re just drawing a picture.  You can find an example here under #1.

Dianne says you will see 3 years growth in spelling using this method and that even the worst spellers will get this method.  To see the more in-depth way to teach spelling this way read this. This same link will give you more information for those who need help in Writing, Grammar, Vocabulary, Handwriting and Reading Comprehension.

If you go to this link, Dianne has a DVD for sale called Teaching the Right Brain Child.  If you are able to purchase any of Dianne’s DVD’s, I think you would find it very beneficial.  There’s something about the way she conveys her information that really makes it stick.

There was so much more information given to us that I am unable to share since I would be writing for hours, so I would recommend you read the links I have provided in this post.