Flashcards vs. Multisensory

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