An early appreciation of your child's preferential learning style can help you encourage them to learn when you're working with them at home. It is also important to be aware of your own style - it might conflict with your child's.

Have a look at the four learning styles and see what yours is (or are - you may favour a mixture) - and then assess your child's style. How does your child vary from you and how can you use your strengths and theirs in a complementary way to help them learn at home?

Learning styles
Psychologists have categorised learning styles in lots of ways, but here's one way of looking at things, with four styles to choose from:

1. Visual learner

• Needs and likes to visualise things
• Learns through images - can remember the pictures on a page
• Enjoys art and drawing
• Reads maps, charts and diagrams well
• Interested in machines and inventions
• Plays with Lego and other construction toys, and likes jigsaw puzzles.
• Can be a daydreamer in class.

To encourage this type of thinking:

• Use board games and memory games to create visual patterns
• Suggest visual clues when reading together - let your child 'paint' their own mind pictures as they read the story
• Offer picture books of all types, even as they get older
• Encourage visualisation of story and reinforce this at intervals
• Encourage writing through using different colours of writing
• Teach 'mind mapping' techniques to older children, to help them learn and recall complex information
• show videos of plays, films etc to reinforce the stories they are studying.

2. Kinaesthetic learner

• Processes knowledge through physical sensations
• Highly active, not able to sit still long
• Communicates using body language and gestures
• Shows you rather than tells you
• Wants to touch and feel the world around them
• May be good at mimicking others
• Enjoys sports or other activities where they can keep moving.

To encourage this type of thinking:

• Movement helps these children - allow them to move around after a time while studying
• Chewing gum, being able to doodle or fiddle with something like beads can help them concentrate
• Use hands-on activities and experiments, art projects, nature walks or acting out stories, so they 'feel' the activities
• Avoid things they don't like - long range planning, complicated projects, paper & pencil tasks, workbooks.

3. Auditory learner

• thinks in words and verbalises concepts
• spells words accurately and easily, as they can hear the different sounds - so tends to learn phonetically rather than through 'look and say' techniques.
• Can be a good reader, though some prefer the spoken word
• Has excellent memory for names, dates and trivia
• Likes word games
• Enjoys using tape recorders and often musically talented
• Usually able to learn their times tables with relative ease.

To encourage this type of thinking:

• Encourage them to create their own word problems
• Get them to dictate a story to you and watch while you write/type it out
• Read aloud together and tape session for later playback
• Buy or borrow books-on-tape for them
• For older children, record information on tapes.

4. Logical learner

• Thinks conceptually, likes to explore patterns and relationships
• Enjoys puzzles and seeing how things work
• Constantly questions and wonders
• Likes routine and consistency
• Capable of highly abstract forms of logical thinking at early age
• Does mental arithmetic easily
• Enjoys strategy games, computers and experiments with a purpose
• Creates own designs to build with blocks/Lego
• Not so good at the more 'creative' side.

To encourage this type of thinking:

• Do science experiments together and get them to record the results. For a comprehensive guide to science at home with your child, log on to www.bbc.co.uk/schools/parents
• Use computer learning games and word puzzles. Check out the programmes on www.bbc.co.uk/wales/education
• Introduce non-fiction and rhyming books.