Is your child ADD, or is he a Kinesthetic Learner?

There is a high occurrence of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) diagnosis among young boys in schools today. I notice that many children who are supposedly ADD are in the elementary years when they are first diagnosed. In most cases these children are put on psycotropic drugs akin to Speed in how they affect the body.

Many people close to me have been labled ADD. While some may truly have an autoimmune disorder that affects their brain's ability to focus properly, I am convinced that what many folks call ADD in the school system is a simple case of a kinesthetic learner being forced into a chair for much of the school day. The public or private school classroom is geared and biased toward the student who learns in an auditory and visual manner. Such children can sit and listen or watch their teacher talk and show pictures on a projector, a chalkboard or in a book and process the information. The kinesthetic learner, however, considers this environment a mild form of torture. Learning becomes associated with a desk and chalk board. School becomes a dread, and a distaste for learning may eventually be fostered.

The kinesthetic child does not fit in a traditional classroom. He is, in fact, a hindrance to a positive classroom environment. This child needs to handle and experience things like manipulatives and meaningful projects to learn. They need to be allowed to move around or doodle (whichever works best for the child) quietly during lecture. They need shorter sessions with frequent short breaks. Lectures that last half an hour don't work well with these students, especially when they are in their early primary years. If a kinesthetic child stood in the back of the classroom and paced back and forth quietly while listening to Mrs. Jones explain how to multiply he would likely be told to get back into his chair and listen. The problem is that he listens best when moving and thirty minutes of sitting still guarantees he will learn nothing more than that he hates "learning" (ie. sitting still). If he starts to tap his pencil later in an effort to fulfill the teacher's command to listen, his name may be written on the board or mom may get a call.

While we see the traditional classroom isn't an ideal learning environment for a kinesthetic learner, what about a homeschooling environment? Learning at home provides obvious potential to tailor a curriculum to a child's learning style, but juggling such a demand with more than two children who are all at different grade levels and abilities can be quite a challenge. The traditional classroom allows a teacher to focus on one subject for one age group all of the time. This teacher is a specialist. She gets to narrow her teaching to one area, year after year, to many students taking in the same information. The homeschooling teacher, however, teaches many subjects for multiple grade levels at the same time and the material to teach changes every year. This difference can make the job of the teacher mind numbing if one or more children in the home need hands on activity and movement as a means of learning. In a household with many children, mom often wants to encourage independent learning with children old enough to read and do an assignment on their own. This is a means of making a difficult task bearable. However, a kinesthetic learner is not likely to sit and read his assignments and write his answers on his own and retain much in the process. He needs activity to accompany his reading. Singing skip counting songs while clapping and bobbing his head to the music works wonderfully well. Tracing letters and number facts is also great. But such things take time and intense focus on the part of mom and the kinesthetic guy is not the only one who needs her attention.

I have found myself in this place as I have recently realized that one of my children is a very strong kinesthetic and specifically tactile learner. He draws pictures that are amazing for a child his age. I used to think he may be ADD, but he can sit and focus for three hours while drawing a picture and including incredible detail that requires intense focus for a first grader to not only notice but also remember to include in his picture. ADD children, those who are truly ADD, will never sit and focus on anything, for three hours. But my child can if his hands are busy keeping his mind focused. He loves to walk up to the chalk board to correct missing punctuation in sentences for grammar practice. He loves science projects if he gets to be the one doing them, and nature walks are a big hit.

So now I wonder, is my brother really ADD? My dad? My little cousin? My brother was put on Ritalin when we were kids. I think he was a thrid grader. He had trouble reading as well as his classmates and didn't do so well with novels or spelling. Third grade is the year when standardized testing begins in schools. Test scores are important for government funding to schools for their performance ratings. A child that is lagging behind due to a need to learn actively can be labeled ADD and considered a special education student. Special Education students are not considered in performance ratings. This means that the "ADD" kid won't mess up a school's funding opportunities. Is my brother really ADD, or is he merely a kinesthetic learner that failed to fit into the mold of the school system? I believe he is a kinesthetic learner. His love of working outdoors fixing fences, herding cattle, and dissceting things coupled with his insatiable need to stay busy at all times convinces me that he needed a learning environment that would allow him to move and stay active much of the day. My father is the same way. He loves to be outdoors and remain physically busy. For well over 20 years he was a firefighter and raised cattle on the side.

So what is my point? My child is not ADD. He is not Special Ed. He is a child who learns in a way that requires activity and motion. He likes to stay active and use his hands. He needs to feel and do in order to process and retain information. This means that I will have to rearrange my way of thinking so I can teach him effectively. I will have to consider his way of learning when I curriculum shop. I will have to help him learn how to satisfy his need to remain active without distracting other people. I am glad we homeschool. It is more work for me, but it will allow my son to learn in ways that a traditional school setting cannot, will not satisfy. The effort is worth the time. Is your "ADD" child really a kinesthetic learner?

A Little Here, A Little There

Our homeschool uses a pretty eclectic approach to education. We don't rely on one die hard approach to school or one educational philosophy. We have an array of different curriculums and programs. Not to mention, much of what I use for one child does not always work so well for another. However, I do use and read lots of classical educational products and philosophies. I have enjoyed the Charlotte Mason approach to education with my early readers in the primary years. If I had to lable myself I would say I educate my children classically (for the most part), but that isn't really saying anything since classical means different things to different people.

So, what to we use for curriculum around here? In a nutshell, we use a little here and a little there.

I do use some textbooks like Rod and Staff Grammar, Horizon's Math 1-3, and Saxon Math 54 - Calculus (we've yet to reach Calculus, but this is my current plan).  We use a mixture of living books and reading guides for History.  Apologia and Christian Liberty Science Readers are our Science staples. Suffer the Little Ones, Show Me Thy Ways, The Children's Story Bible by Katherine Vos, and the Westminster Shorter Catechism are the core of our Christian Studies curriculum.  We are looking at starting logic and foreign language studies next year. Language arts is a hodge podge with me. I love language arts and fall into the trap of wanting to use everyting to find the "best" there is. I always end up returning to McGuffey readers and SWR/WRTR methods for the little ones with lots of reading from good books. McGuffey Eclectic Readers have great pictures and have inspired beautiful copybooks and improved drawing skills in my home. The lack of color in the pictures allows the kiddos to focus on drawing the lines and shapes they see rather than focusing on bright colors. I love the poetry in them. I use them for my enjoyment as much as for the kids.