Depending on who you ask, there are three, four, five, or seven different learning styles. And while you can expand the different ways of learning into countless applications and permutations, the three main types of sensory learning are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic – or sight, sound, and touch.
This distinction of “sensory” simply means how the information is consumed. For most people, the way for them to best understand a concept is for them to process is through their preferred learning style. Each has its advantages, disadvantages, and applications, and none is inherently better than any other.
- Visual For visual learners, they need to see a graphic, read about a topic, or see a task performed in order to completely grasp a concept. About 65 percent of the general population is visual learners, made up of those who learn well through the written word – both reading it and writing it – and those who work better with pictures, graphs, charts, etc. They will often take copious notes during a class or ask for a copy of the PowerPoint presentation so they can go over it again later.
- Auditory For these learners, they may be seen mumbling to themselves when they read – or at least moving their lips. Their brain works more like a tape recorder, processing the information best if heard. They may learn best by recording lectures or listening to books on tape. They likely take few notes as it can distract them from listening. About 25 percent of people are auditory learners.
- Kinesthetic For these people – about 10 percent of the population – they often associate movement or touch with learning. For hands-on tasks (fixing, building, creating, etc.) going through the process will help them solidify it, but they will also often take notes, highlight, or follow their finger while they read – not necessarily because they need to be able to reference the highlighted text more easily but because the motion of highlighting helps them better process the information.
People take in information in different ways, and there are various ways for them to then process that information. If you’re teaching, try to vary your presentation so more people can process what you’re teaching. And if you’ve struggled with learning or comprehension in the past, you may want to reevaluate your own learning style to see if you need to make any changes to how you learn.