Help your preschooler with brain-friendly math or learning styles?

Whether it’s because you’ve read my other articles in the Early Childhood Education category or you’ve researched this topic online, you likely have questions about how the terms “brain-friendly” and “learning styles” fit into your work with your preschooler. Certainly the goal of both is to help your child learn, so what is the difference? Is one better than the other?

“Learning styles” is the oldest concept and represents the results of various research studies trying to determine how we learn. A summary of these findings can be found in my article “Learning Styles: Should I Get My Child Tested?” (The answer is NO.) These concepts were essentially guesswork, based on observation of behavior, about how the brain captures and stores information. Guess how the brain learns.

I recommend that you read that article to familiarize yourself with the terminology because it is likely that you will come across some or all of these concepts as you study early childhood education more. You may even find teachers in your child’s future who are still holding on to these concepts. Some of these attempts to explain how we learn have more merit than others; there is some truth in each one; but neither provided the full answer. The concept of learning styles has lost popularity in the field of education. In my research for this article, I was struck by the number of articles and videos that referred to “debunking” this concept of learning styles.

Having taught in public schools in the 1990s, when we were encouraged to test our students’ learning styles, and students were often placed in classes where their learning style matched the teacher’s style, the idea that the styles Learning to be “discredited” initially seemed impossible. However, this change in attitude about education is the result of new developments in brain scan technology, brain surgery, and brain research. We no longer have to guess how the brain learns. We have a lot of research and hands-on verification of techniques that have been shown to be effective in making learning happen.

The field of brain-based education and learning is only a couple of decades old; and the field is not without critics; But even Harvard University now offers master’s and doctoral programs through its MBE (Mind, Brain, and Education) program. The study of brain-based education is about learning what techniques parents and educators should use to better engage the brain in learning.

Now that we know how the brain actually learns, it is important that you use proper brain techniques as you work with your preschooler. You don’t need a teaching degree to use brain-friendly techniques. Now I will summarize here the things to consider when working with your child. The brain needs color, exercise / movement, a variety of activities, novelty, processing time, music, limiting stress, information in small “chunks”, lots of rest, introduction to “the arts”: dance, theater (acting out) and art, frequent check-ups, good nutrition, and more. There are many specific techniques that teachers use in their classrooms, but this list will give you a good start for working at home.

There are a few things to notice on the list:

  1. These activities actually use all the different learning style concepts, so you don’t need to assess your child and that’s why I didn’t list them. Using Brain-Friendly Techniques addresses what you need to know about learning styles.

  2. You are already using many of these techniques. You are already working in short periods of time, giving time to processing, a lot of review, movement, different types of activities, observing your child to avoid stress, etc.

  3. Skills and exercises worksheets are NOT brain-friendly. There are hundreds of sites online that offer worksheets for your preschooler. However, unless these worksheets are colorful, novel and varied activities, are short, self-check to avoid mistakes, and you are willing to monitor every moment of their use, you should avoid using them!

If you want to learn more about brain-based learning, I recommend reading Eric Jensen, David Sousa, and / or John Medina.

The answer to the initial question is that “brain-friendly” is the concept of learning that you need to incorporate into your work with your child. Note that I haven’t even mentioned math because these techniques are for ALL learning. Remember to always be positive with your child, get excited about learning, and avoid boredom in your child. Boredom actually destroys brain cells, and we certainly don’t want that!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *