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 Visual-Spatial Learners

"The visual spatial learner thrives on complexity, yet struggles with easy material; loves difficult puzzles, but hates drill and repetition; is great at geometry and physics, but poor at phonics and spelling. She has keen visual memory, but poor auditory memory; is creative and imaginative, but inattentive in class; is a systems thinker, all the while disorganized, forgets the details. He excels in math analysis, but is poor at calculation; has high reading comprehension, but low word recognition; has an excellent sense of humor, and performs poorly on timed tests." by Linda Kreger Silverman

Classroom Identification of Visual-Spatial Learners: Differentiation Strategies For Creating a Successful Classroom by Alexandra Shires Golon

Includes strategies for preparing students for timed tests, developing handwriting skills, teaching spelling, getting students organized, and more...
 

Taking Notes in Picture Form – A Powerful Strategy for Visual-Spatial Students by Alexandra Shires Golon

Those who favor their right hemisphere (at least 1/3 of students) face disadvantages in the regular classroom. One of these challenges is the ability to take effective notes. In delivering strictly auditory lectures, we ask those who think in images to translate their mental pictures into words, write those words quickly, yet comprehensively, and then go back to those words and create permanent mental images that they can regurgitate on demand. For visual-spatial students, there is a better way! (requires ^Adobe)
 

Classroom Identification of Visual-Spatial Learners by Steven C. Haas

In the classroom setting, however, how can a teacher tell the visual-spatial learners (VSLs) from the auditory-sequential ones? (requires ^Adobe)
 

Evaluate Your Learning Style by Capital Community-Technical College Learning Assistance Center

And when you're done, check their recommendations for Compensating for Weaknesses In Learning Style
 

The Hidden Gift: Author-mother discovers pathway into autistic mind by Kevin Lamb, Dayton Daily News

Sam Bryan was labeled with severe learning disabilities and an IQ around 70 before his second-grade test scores last year put him at the level of a first-year law student.  The boys' brains were fluent in a language foreign to most schools they think in pictures.  Sometimes what looks like a challenge is really a gift...
 

Identifying Visual-Spatial and Auditory-Sequential Learners: A Validation Study by Linda Kreger Silverman

For the auditory-sequential learner, learning is step-by-step, following a logical progression from beginning to end. For the visual-spatial learner, learning comes through imagery of the whole concept. Visualization provides the organizational construct for assimilating and processing new ideas.  Includes 25 Helpful Techniques for Visual-Spatial Learners... (requires ^Adobe)
 

If Your Could See the Way I Think: A Handbook for Visual-Spatial Kids by Alexandra Shires Golan (available only from the GDC)

A celebration of the gifts of kids who prefer a visual-spatial learning style.  The 21st century adult world will demand their skills; here's how to help them be successful in their left-hemispheric classrooms...
Read excerpt Using Visual-Spatial Strengths to Memorize New Material (requires ^Adobe)
 

Importance of Assessing Spatial Ability in Intellectually Talented Young Adolescents: A 20-Year Longitudinal Study by Daniel L Shea, David Lubinski and Camilla P. Benbow

"...Spatial ability added incremental validity to the SAT-M and SAT-V assessments in predicting educational - vocational outcomes over these successive time frames [age 13, 18, 23, and 33].  It appears that spatial ability can compliment contemporary talent search procedures..." (requires ^{Adobe Reader})
 

I Think in Pictures, You Teach in Words: The Gifted Visual Spatial Learner by Lesley Sword

There is to date no formal assessment instrument for identifying gifted visual spatial learners. Identification is best done by...
 

Maverick Mind: A Mother's Story of Solving the Mystery of Her Unreachable, Unteachable, Silent Son by Cheri L. Florance

Florance began to theorize that Whitney's visual thought process was so advanced, it had shut down his verbal ability. Together with her two older children, she developed a method of teaching Whitney to read and to think sequentially based on visual, rather than verbal cues...
 

Nurture Your Child's Visual-Spatial Intelligence by The Mining Company

Lots of ways you can nurture your child's visual-spatial intelligence
 

Raising Topsy-Turvy Kids: Successfully Parenting Your Visual-Spatial Child by Alexandra Shires Golon

How do you know if you have one?  Allie paints a perfect picture!  And how do you parent and educate them?  Learn here.
Read excerpts Organizational Skills for Visual-Spatial Learners and Maintaining Harmony at Home (requires ^Adobe)
 

Spatial ability and G by David F. Lohman

Spatial abilities have long been relegated to a secondary status in accounts of human intelligence. Tests of spatial abilities are viewed as measures of practical and mechanical abilities that are useful in predicting success in technical occupations, but not as measures of abstract reasoning abilities. This conflicts with the important role afforded to spatial imagery in accounts of creative thinking, and with the observed correlations between spatial tests and other measures of intelligence...
 

The Spatial Child by John Philo Dixon

Although often a primary sign of giftedness, spatial ability may be unrecognized, misdiagnosed or misunderstood. Describes ways to identify spatial children and methods of classroom instruction, with emphasis on approaches that encourage the spatial gift while compensating for possible deficiencies...
 

Spatially gifted, verbally, inconvenienced by David F. Lohman

Sometimes the words are there and I can call them up effortlessly and deliver them to my listeners with reasonable fluency. But sometimes the words are not there, and I find myself struggling to express with clarity even the simplest of ideas.  I have discovered that I am not unique. Indeed, my battles with words pale in comparison to those that others have waged against them. The astonishing fact is that even some of the great masters of the language could not always trust their fluency...
 

Strategies for the Visual Spatial Learners by Linda Silverman, in DDAI's The Dyslexic Reader

What is a Visual-Spatial Learner? and why is traditional school atmosphere often hostile to visual-spatial learners?
 

Teaching Mathematics to Non-sequential Learners by Linda Kreger Silverman

...children who show superior grasp of mathematical relations, but inferior abilities in mathematical computation. These children consistently see themselves as poor in mathematics and most hate math. This situation is terribly unfortunate, since their visual-spatial abilities and talent in mathematical analysis would indicate that they are “born mathematicians.” (requires ^{Adobe Reader})
 

Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism (Expanded edition) by Temple Grandin

I think in pictures.  I translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies, complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in my head. When somebody speaks to me, his words are instantly translated into pictures. Language-based thinkers often find this phenomenon difficult to understand...
 

Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner by Linda Kreger Silverman

The gifts of the right hemisphere... Adults and children alike will find in this book an opening to hidden abilities they may not even know they have.  Read excerpt All About Time (requires ^Adobe)
And the companion, Raising Topsy-Turvy Kids: Successfully Parenting Your Visual-Spatial Child by Alexandra Shires Golon
 

Visual Spatial Resource

More great articles and resources, from Linda Silverman, Allie Golon, Steve Haas, Penny Choice, and other authors...
 

Visual Spatial Learner by Linda Kreger Silverman

Great resources, including an Introduction, Characteristics Comparison, Exercise for Identification, and lots more! Hover your mouse over the Visual-Spatial Learner button on left, and click on Downloadable articles...
 

Visual Thinking & The Writing Process by Ryan Coleman

Slideshow explaining the visual writing process. Great as a writing process guide for visual-thinker students, or an explanation for the adults in their lives...
 

The Writing Problems of Visual Thinkers by Gerald Grow

Because some gifted visual thinkers have difficulty producing the kind of writing required in schools and colleges, they may become casualties of a form of learning style discrimination built into the educational system. Grow pleads for better understanding of the thinking processes that produce such writing problems and the development of new ways of teaching writing that directly address visual thinkers...