To a certain extent, all people are visual learners. However, some people take it to the extreme, where that is almost the only way they can learn. It is the second group of people that this article addresses. These people are "classified" as visual learners and represents about 30 percent of the US population. This presents some difficulty because the school systems in the United States teach in an auditory-sequential manner. The best school system for visual learners is actually a Montessori program, which is more hands on and manipulative, which is the environment where visual learners thrive.

Visual learners, also referred to as VSLs (for visual spatial learners), learn through paying attention to the actions that others take. They watch sports and know where each player stands on the field and how that person moves.

From the time my child was a year old, he would line up his match box cars. There could be several lines of them, but they all had to be in a line. If my husband or I would mess up the line, he would put it back in order. When he had started talking, I asked him one day if the cars needed to be in a line, to which he said yes. I asked him if he knew why they needed to be in a line, he said yes. But when I asked him to explain it to me, he said he could not. What we have since figured out, is that what he sees, in the real world, is cars in a line. When he was in his car seat, there were cars in front of our car and cars beside our car and we were all in our respective "lines". We drove on a 4 lane road to his day care, which at stop lights would add a right turn lane and a left turn lane, so, there would be 4 lanes of cars all going in the same direction. He was mimicking what he saw every day and he knew that cars needed to be in a line. But he had no idea why; which makes sense when you think if it from a very young child's point of view.

As I said above, all people are visual learners and this description of the cars lining up could happen with any child. But this is the ONLY way my child plays with cars. They line up, they all go some place, in the line.

So, how do you know if your child is a visual learner? Visual Learners have difficulty demonstrating what they know. They also struggle with timed tests. Visual learners create their own organization system. They learn complex concepts easily, but struggle with easy skills. A visual learner will also learn whole words easier than they will learn individual letters.

Visual learners learn in pictures. If they cannot picture it, they struggle with learning it. Any time you can provide a picture of something that your child is learning, or a way to visualize a system with building blocks rather than paper, your child will learn more and be more excited about learning. I have many, many examples on my website.

Once you have diagnosed your child, you need to follow up with the school, his or her teacher, the school administration, even grandparents and friends to always be on the look out for ways to help.