HERO of Oklahoma

Oklahoma Homeschooling -  Learning Styles

One thing to keep in mind while charting your homeschooling course is the impact learning styles will have on your journey.  If the idea of different styles for learning is new to you, you may want to check out one or more of the books listed below.  Have you ever given much thought to the way you learn best?  Are you a visual learner and do very well reading about a new topic or using typical workbooks?  Perhaps an auditory learner, learning best by hearing something new?  How about your child and the way they learn the best?  Does your child lean more toward kinesthetic learning and learn best in a hands on situation?  Is your way the same as your child?  Is your child's way of learning different from your own?  With a little bit of forethought, you can avoid many pitfalls along the way by taking into consideration both your own learning/teaching style and your child's learning style. 

Many young children are natural kinesthetic learners and do much better learning in a hands-on way instead of sticking strictly to the visual approach used in workbook learning.  A little bit of research will show you dozens of ways to teach/learn any given topic.  Just a few minutes mining for ideas can result in learning being a pleasurable, natural event for your child and stress-free for you as well. 

The various learning styles.

Learning About Learning Styles


Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense, by David Guterson Touting the importance of the family, this book is written by a high school English teacher who, with his wife, homeschools his three sons. Thought provoking observations about how we learn and societal ideas about institutional education.


How Children Learn (Classics in Child Development), by John Holt  John Holt was a school teacher and educational critic whose influential books continue to spark debate about school reform and the nature of learning. In How Children Learn, Holt makes a very convincing case against the use of force in education (compulsory education) and describes how the practice kills curiosity and interest in learning. The book reveals Holt's observations on childhood learning from babyhood to about 5th grade.


Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling  John Holt and Pat Farenga, who updated this classic in a March 2003 edition, demonstrate how ordinary parents can help children grow as social, active learners and suggest that replicating the institutional school environment at home wastes homeschooling benefits.


How Children Fail (Classics in Child Development), by John Holt If it is unclear how schools are failing our children, this books spells it out. It may remind you of your own painful childhood experiences in an institutional school setting, including: trying to please the teacher, the folly of memorization, the control teachers exert to assure conformity, and the "cook-bookery" approach to math, in which a series of steps are performed thoughtlessly to come up with the right answer. This book is an oldy, but a goody--unfortunately, it is still relevant.

Your Child, Your Choice, by Chad Fridal  As a former teacher, a product of public schools and most importantly a parent, I have a deep desire to help parents free their little ones from the Public School System. I have made my book, “Your Child, Your Choice” available for FREE to all to read.


Learning All The Time In Learning All the Time, Holt, a former teacher, shares his observations and thoughts on children's natural learning ability, and the actual stifling of learning that is inherent in an institutional education.


Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, by John Taylor Gatto  Several essays from speeches by John Taylor Gatto about schooling versus education. NY State Teacher of the Year turned homeschool advocate. Short, easy-to-read. 


Deschooling Our Lives, by Matt Hern  An inspiring series of essays by great education thinkers of the past and present, including everyone from Grace Llewellyn, John Holt, and John Taylor Gatto to Tolstoy.


In Their Own Way, by Thomas Armstrong Discusses different learning and teaching styles. Useful when dealing with school officials and when beginning homeschooling.


Trust the Children: A Manual and Activity Guide for Homeschooling and Alternative Learning, by Anna Kealoha Kealoha emphasizes fostering a love of learning and self-motivation. This book is an excellent resource for homeschoolers.


The Right Choice: The Incredible Failure of Public Education and the Rising Hope of Home Schooling, by Christopher Klicka Written by an HSLDA lawyer, this book has some empowering information for Christian families choosing this path.


Coloring Outside the Lines, by Roger Schank  Schank examines how institutional schooling sucks the life out of learning and challenges parents to re-examine their ideas of long-held education belief systems.


Worldwide Guide to Homeschooling: Facts And Stats on the Benefits of Homeschool (Worldwide Guide to Homeschooling), by Brian D. Ray PhD   Documents the phenomenal successes achieved by thousands of homeschooling families, including life after homeschooling. Got a doubting Thomas in the family? Give him or her this compact little jewel. Also perfect for the media and legislators.


Identifying Learning Styles

Learning Styles Online
Our learning styles inventory, available at the site, asks the user 70 questions to identify which are the user's dominant and secondary learning styles. It then displays the results visually using our unique learning styles graph.

Multiple Intelligence
To discover your child's learning style you may observe what your child likes and enjoys doing most while he/she is playing, interacting or learning.

Child's Learning Assets
The natural order of things is that children do their learning "job" by first collecting information so that when it comes time to think in the abstract, they have lots of information to work with. By Linda Dobson [HEM].

A Learning Style Survey for College
Click on the most appropriate button after each statement. Appropriate for those youger than college, too. Highly descriptive results page, telling you approach to take to learning based on your learning style.

Teaching and Learning Strategies

Learning Styles and Hemispheric Dominance: Is Your Learning Style at Odds with That of Your Child's?
These differences in our preferred approaches to learning and utilization of resources were causing some conflict among my children and myself and a great deal of inner turmoil on my part. By Karen M. Gibson, HELM.

Teaching and Learning Strategies
In this area of the website you will find information on some of the best researched and the most widely implemented methods of helping all students to learn more successfully. The information includes a description of how the teaching and learning strategies work, where they have been applied, results, and where to find further information from experts in the field, books, websites, and other resources.

Orton-Gillingham Tutoring by Patty Harvey - Is your bright child a year or more behind in reading? Don't wait to get help. A former homeschooling parent, I have more than 10 years' experience using the Orton-Gillingham approach to help children and teens with learning differences. Instruction integrates auditory/visual/kinesthetic-motor pathways to the brain in order to build a new, lasting foundation for reading/spelling/writing. This approach is structured, systematic, multi-sensory, phonics-based, and highly effective with dyslexia. And most importantly, your child will gain skills and confidence for academic success in a safe, positive environment. Free consultations; reasonable rates. Located in Norman, I am available for co-op small group classes and parent meetings. For a free consultation call Patti Harvey at
719-287-5560.