Secondary News

Study Skills in Secondary

Learning style has to do with how people revise and apply academic material.  Knowing your learning style enables you to use your strengths as you study. One of many instruments for determining learning style is the VARK questionnaire, developed by Neil Fleming. The VARK system categorizes learners into four styles: Visual, Aural, Reading/Writing, and Kinesthetic. Many learners show strength in more than one learning style.

Visual learners learn best from visual images that do not include writing. Graphs and diagrams are easy for them to understand. They remember faces and places and tend to recall information by picturing it in their minds. In class, a visual learner is going to find it relatively easy to “read” a pie chart in Mathematics or perceive differences between artists’ painting styles.

Aural or auditory learners do well with hearing information. They remember words to songs and can recall conversations in detail by hearing them in their minds. An aural learner will remember lecture material in a variety of classes and may be skilled at memorizing things like music or lines for a theatrical production.

Reading/Writing learners are confident with written material. They comprehend and remember what they read, and they often enjoy writing. Schools have traditionally been geared to the reading/writing learning style; these learners can take notes in most classes and will benefit from reading them as a method for study.

Kinesthetic learners learn by doing. They prefer to being involved in activities and need to apply new information and make it their own by constructing something or practising a technique or skill.