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The Importance of Customizing Tutoring Sessions to Learning Styles

Different Learning Styles and their Importance in Choosing a Tutor.

When there are 30 students in a classroom all being taught the exact same way, did you ever wonder why some kids ‘get it’ and some kids don’t? There’s an answer to that.

In 1983 Howard Gardner a professor of education at Harvard proposed that there are several different types of intelligences, or learning styles. *

  1. Verbal-Linguistic (Word Smart) – People who learn best through reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
  2. Logical-Mathematical (Logic Smart) – Students who are logical thinkers ask a lot of questions and are good puzzle solvers. They also like to experiment and see the logical patters by making connections between pieces of information.
  3. Visual-Spatial (Picture Smart) – Visual people learn the most from pictures, diagrams, demonstrations, displays, films and other form of visual aids.
  4. Auditory-Musical (Music Smart) – This learning style involves the transfer of information through sound, song, music even rhymes.
  5. Bodily-Kinesthetic (Body Smart) – Students who learn this way benefit from physical experiences such as touching, feeling, holding and doing. They work best when they are hands on.
  6. Interpersonal (People Smart) – These are students who benefit by seeing things from someone else’s point of view. They enjoy working, learning, helping and being around other people.
  7. Intrapersonal (Self Smart) – People who are Intrapersonal are very determined individuals who work best on their own. They function very well with deadlines and personal goals.
  8. Naturalistic (Nature Smart) – Similar to kinesthetic learners these students work best by touching, feeling and holding. The difference being that they specifically enjoy working in an outdoor environment.

After looking at these 8 styles it’s easy to understand why some student’s don’t function to their potential in a classroom environment.

It also speaks to why employing a tutor from a site like tutortroops.com is an excellent way to help struggling students succeed. Besides the benefit of the one-on-one tutoring sessions Tutortroops.com provides, they also take the time to get to know the student and pick a tutor best suited to their specific learning needs.

Just because a student is having challenges in school doesn’t mean they aren’t intelligent. It just means that the classroom isn’t the best environment for them to learn. Using tutortroops.com to customize a plan that works with the student’s learning style is how to ensure success.

*Source: http://www.multipleintelligencetheory.co.uk