One innovative way of fostering learning in early childhood
relates to using the five senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, touching) to teach
sight words and strengthen reading skills.
I personally like to employ more than one technique when I am learning
things on my own and I find that when I write things down, say them, make up a
pneumonic for them and review them repetitively every night I remember better
then glancing at it periodically. Every child is a different type of
learner. What works for one child may
not work as well for the next child.
Some children may remember the content of a story once they read it in a
book, but other children need to read the story, answer questions, make
pictures, apply the information in the book to their real-life situation and
other things. I read an article that
emphasized the importance of using the 5 senses while teaching children sight
words. The article compared whether or not
a multisensory approach was more beneficial or a focused drill approach. They noted a multisensory approach was, “instruction
appeals to visual, auditory, kinesthetic-tactual learning styles.” The results of the study found that children
learned more sight words through the multisensory approach and that they
enjoyed the process of learning the words a lot more as well.
I believe the multisensory approach can be applied to many
difference abstract concepts in the classroom.
I think I’ve always been an advocate of the multisensory approach. However, now I am seeing more and more
research that backs it up and shows its effectiveness. I incorporate the multisensory approach all
the time, especially when teaching a child to correctly articulate a specific
sound. I have the child pretend to be a
teacher and correct me when I say the sound incorrectly. I then have the child to trace their sound on
paper, trace it on a white board and make their letter with playdough. We then play games and I overly emphasize
the sound so that the child can understand how often the sound is said, we read
books and I point out the sound and add a visual description to the sound as
well (ex. R-growling dog sound, s-slithering snake sound, l-singing lady
sound).
How have you incorporated a multisensory approach in your
classrooms? What tough concepts did you
find were a lot easier to teach when you got away from the traditional teaching
style and became more creative with your techniques?
Reference
Philips, W.E. , & Feng, J. (2012). Methods for Sight
Word Recognition in Kindergarten: Traditional
Flashcard
Method vs. Multisensory Approach. Online
Submission.
http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED536732
