Studio3Music Blog

One of the things that is hardest for me as a mom is to parent my children who are different from me. After all, as I told you a couple of days ago, I’m mostly a visual, abstract-sequential learner. And internally-motivated. I get me really well.

I used to get frustrated with my oldest son, who is mostly the opposite of me, until I understood how he learned and processed information. Okay, I’ll confess. He’s 12 ½ now, and still frustrates me at times, but for different reasons!

Most traditional schools emphasize reading and writing (what psychologist Howard Gardner calls the Linguistic and Logical-Mathematical Intelligences), but not all children learn best that way.

Howard Gardner came up with 8 “Multiple Intelligences”. (A theory, according to the scientific community.) I’m going to tell you a little bit about each intelligence during the blog posts this week, with the hope that you’ll recognize your child in one of more of them, and then learn how you can help develop that intelligence – the practical reality.

Spatial Intelligence (Picture Smart)

These children will tend to see pictures in their heads. They have excellent spatial awareness and judgment. They can draw what they see both easily and well. They don’t tend to get lost. They can manipulate objects in their mind. They are good at catching a ball as they can anticipate movement in space.

These children are keen observers of the world, and notice details that many others miss. They are highly visual and right-brained. They are good at puzzles, mazes, and building things. Fine motor skills are often well-developed. They are the daydreamers (with very active imaginations), artists, architects, and creators.

How to Encourage Your Picture Smart Child:

• provide things that can be taken apart and put back together
• arts and crafts kits, clay
• drawing paper, pens, pencils, paints, chalk, crayons
• map making
• microscopes, telescopes
• legos, playmobil, blocks and other manipulatives to “design” play areas, buildings or other things
• puzzles
• anything that allows them to create
• display their artwork

Linguistic Intelligence (Word Smart)

These children love words – spoken or written! They can have an aptitude for expressing themselves with words. They are good at reading, writing, memorizing and telling stories. They can learn foreign languages easily. These children even invent their own languages. They are great debaters and good public speakers – they love to talk!

Frequently, these children read at an early age. They can be what we call intuitive (almost self-taught) readers, meaning they might not rely on phonics as much for learning to read, but figuring out words based on context.  As they grow up, they tend to love crossword puzzles. They are the poets, writers, journalists and public speakers.

How to Encourage Your Word Smart Child:

• provide book-making supplies
• write down a pre-writer’s stories
• read, read, read to your child
• let them have their own library card and take frequent trips there
• alphabet games, magnetic letters
• word games, puns, silly rhymes
• encourage storytelling – let them talk
• picture dictionary, atlas, globe
• be the audience for their plays and skits

­-posted by Miss Analiisa, who loves what Howard Gardner said when asked for advice on how parents could rear successful children, Gardner replied that we should not try to make our children good at what we ourselves were good at, or what we ourselves were not good at. Our job is to help our children become who they are supposed to be, not what we think they should be.