PRODUCT CATEGORIES

Especially for the VISUAL LEARNER

MORE:
 ■ Visual learners do not benefit from repetition and drill (ex: math facts flashcards)
■ Visual learners don't do well with oral instructions (ex: giving directions for how to get somewhere
    vs. showing them a map which their brain snaps a picture of and remembers)
■ They cannot deal with step-by-step instructions without a final goal presented to them (ex: making
    a woven paper mat: "Cut your paper into strips, then weave the strips together" vs. showing them
    a completed mat like the one you want them to make) 
■ They do not start at the beginning and follow prescribed steps to arrive at the desired end 
■ They must see the whole picture - they work from whole to part, rather than from part to whole (ex:
    spelling lists do not work for these children. Much better to teach them sounds spellings with many
    examples of words that follow that same pattern, let them color the target sound spelling yellow
    so it stands out visually, etc.)
■ Visual learners work best when they know the desired outcome and can make their own steps for
    getting there
■ They tend to have less working memory and rely on their visual capacities to succeed (ex: sounding
    out a word requires a child to retain in memory the sequence of sounds in a word. They then have
    to retain these sounds in correct sequence long enough to figure out the word. It is much easier
    for visual learners to learn whole words using stylized sight words, much easier for them to deal
    with chunks of words they have learned using patterns, such as T - AUGH - T which is a three-
    sound word.
■ Visual learners tend to be emotionally intuitive
■ They learn best by seeing relationships between things, rather than facts in isolation (ex: seeing 
    ALL the facts to ten as shown in the above example, or seeing all the words that contain AUGH in
    them rather than just learning that TAUGHT is spelled T-A-U-G-H-T)
■ Visual learners may appear scattered and disorganized, unattentive, and sometimes incapable. But
    they have an amazing capacity for working with systems and global organization. What seems to
    be correct and logical to left brain learners might make no sense at all to visual learners.
■ Visual learners tend to be creative, dramatic, artistic, musical, good with their hands, good at
    building things, solving puzzles, and solving problems.

Because our educational system is doing a super job of teaching to left brain learners, visual learners are often perceived as being not quite as bright as their classmates. The problem does not lie in the minds of the visual learners, but in our system of educating all children in the same way. We must let go of the notion that all children can and should learn from teaching that is directed primarily to the left hemisphere of the brain. (Reading and Math are both taught in this way, and these disciplines form the foundation for all their learning.) Some people believe that a teacher would have to teach several different ways in order to accommodate the various learning styles, but that is not an accurate assumption. Teachers will be successful in reaching all their learners at one time if they will develop a teaching style that is a synthesis of methods that target the whole brain. Child1st exists to help provide teaching materials that are multisensory; materials that make this task of teaching to the whole brain easier for the parent and teacher!

What does it mean if my child is a visual learner?
Visual learners learn best from pictures, patterns, maps, charts, and from seeing how details fit into the whole. Visual/spatial learners think in pictures instead of in words, and they see the big picture rather than individual details. The magic for these children lies in the fact that they learn all at once and when their light bulb goes on, learning is complete and permanent. Liken this mental process to the flash of a camera snapping a picture of a whole scene at one time.

ABOVE:
 Sums for the visual learner.
■ All the sums to ten are shown at one time
■ Each sum is a new color for contrast with nearby sums
■ Arrangement on abacus shows the pattern made by stacking the
    sums in order (space slanting to the child's right)
■ Numbers form another pattern in that they range from 1-9 on the
    right and from 9-1 on the child's left.
HOW WE CAN HELP YOU
 Our products are multisensory which simply means that we have created materials that will utilize as many avenues to the brain as possible for the benefit of visual learners:

ABCs taught through visuals, jingles, body motions, stories & hands-on activities so that all those left brained symbols are surrounded in wonderful right brained elements

Easy-For-Me® Books give relevance and the goal to children who are visual learners.

WhisperPhone® is an acoustical voice-feedback headset that enables learners of all ages to focus and hear the sounds that make up words (phonemes) more clearly as they learn to read, spell, or process language aloud. Great for those childen who must hear sounds clearly in order to learn.

Stylized Sight Words allow the mental camera to snap a picture of the word, sentence on reverse lends meaning to the word, while the body  motion grabs those children that need movement in order to learn! (kinesthetic learners).

The Kid Friendly series incorporates a variety of learning styles within the math curriculum. Visual learners will see numbers and computations through pictures, auditory learners will hear concepts put to music, and kinesthetic learners will be involved in hands-on activities. All of these activities connect learning to concepts in a meaningful and concrete way for children.

Multisensory, explicit phonics instruction that includes DAILY:

 ■ Body motions combined with auditory exercises, and visual elements all at one time.
■ Phonics and phonemic awareness taught systematically
■ Patterns, stories, cartoons, visuals are utilized to maximize the learning benefit for childen who are not left brain learners.
■ Hands-on activities that will provide practice, books that provide the "goal" for learning sounds and words, and so much more!

"One night I was searching online for different ways to teach sight words to kids who are visual learners. I was specifically looking for word cards that had visuals for easy sight words like "is, it, the," etc. I came across Child1st Publications and saw immediately what I was looking for. I only started using them a week ago and I can already see a big difference. I teach in a first grade inclusion class and I started using them for all the kids and intensely with my visual learners. The kids love them; I even take them to the cafeteria when I have lunch duty. It's awesome to see the kids building their confidence in reading!"   
Susan Carpenter ~ Bear, DE