Children and adults alike have preferred ways -- learning styles -- of mastering subjects.

The simplest way to understand learning styles and their place in education is to start with yourself. To build a cabinet from a kit, for example, would you read the instructions first, have someone read the instructions to you, or dive in and begin fiddling with the parts?

When teachers and parents use teaching styles that match children's individual learning styles, there are rich opportunities to build confidence and self-esteem, and equip students for life.

Here are recommendations for parents and teachers from a national child development expert and local school administrators.

BE MINDFUL

"It's really important to understand your child's mind and how it's wired," says Dr. Mel Levine, author and founder of the All Kinds of Minds institute in North Carolina. "It can be very hazardous for a child to grow up misinterpreted."

The many significant differences among the minds of children call for individual teaching approaches. Some kids are highly verbal and prefer to think and create using language. Others do better visually. While both sets will do well later in life, those with greater language skills are more likely to succeed in schools where this is the primary teaching and evaluation tool, Levine says.

Other children are action-oriented and have difficulty sitting still because they need intense experience all the time, he says. These students are easily bored. However, they may someday emerge as entrepreneurs because they like things their way, have a lot of ideas and are closure-oriented. "But they don't do well on multiple-choice tests," Levine says. "We must teach, and measure every child's progress, appropriately."

All students, he says, should be assessed by an expert in learning styles.

"Many wiring patterns just don't fit our expectations," Levine says. An awareness of the individual child helps avoid writing off and humiliating those who don't fit the typical pattern. This is not limited to the classroom, but involves parents. too.

"Everybody is accountable for providing a setting where every kid can practice his specialty, do what he's really good at, taste what it's like to get an A or B."

Levine says evidence shows that teachers can develop plans to meet individual needs even in large classes. For a student who doesn't excel in writing reports, for example, offer opportunities to express understanding of a subject with some extra illustrations. For students who are stymied when called on to respond to a question in class, a teacher instead can say, "I'm going to call on you tomorrow to talk about (whatever specific topic). Can you be ready for that?" Doing so creates freedom to learn without fear of looking stupid because he can't think of the answer quickly.

This has deep implications for students referred to a doctor for evaluation.

"The more attuned to individual needs you are, the less apt you are to reach for the prescription pen," Levine says. He adds that medication isn't always unwarranted, but believes that many behavior issues and learning problems hinge on underlying factors other than a medical condition. Poor grasp or slow retrieval of language, lack of memory aids, tuning out for lack of understanding, increased concerns due to school or home issues, as well as other issues, may contribute to an inaccurate diagnosis of attention-deficit disorder/attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

There also are many types of memory and memory gaps. It helps to know which math errors are being made, which spelling errors are problematic, Levine says. Determine if there is difficulty remembering words, sequences or patterns, for example.

Both at school and at home, "it helps to include a child's special interests in an individualized learning plan," says Levine's Web site, www.allkindsofminds.com. This approach can "motivate and help through or around a learning difficulty."

When children aren't performing to their best ability, he says, we need to find the reasons and tailor our efforts to helping them succeed. There may be output problems, Levine says, but we should never assume they are because of laziness.

"Perhaps the student is ashamed of her handwriting. She may feel like it's better to be criticized for not doing an assignment at all than for not doing it well enough. Or it may be that a student is disorganized and spacey, so he can't find his completed work. A student who has trouble making choices may wait until it's too late to complete a project.

"There is no such thing as a lazy kid. Every child wants to be productive," Levine says. "If not, something's obstructing the assembly line, and we have to figure out what it is.

"One of the major obligations of a school," he says, "is to identify and strengthen a child's strengths. That's how he's going to make a living, feel good about himself, find gratification and fulfillment in life. We have to manage a child's assets."
 

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Helping at home -- Encourage your student to put schoolwork and materials in exactly the same place every time. Be consistent in organizing and planning each night before bed for the next day. -- If your child is losing and misplacing things, have her slow down and check for materials before leaving the house for school, and before getting on and off the bus coming home. -- Teach good time management. Every Sunday night, sit down with your child. Plan for and write down on a calendar all the events, tasks and things that need to be accomplished for the week. Through the week, cross off what's been accomplished each day, and determine if those tasks took more or less time than anticipated. This will help you plan more effectively the next week. -- Don't say to your child, "You should be able to do this yourself, and you're going to have to do this for yourself one of these days" and then leave him on his own to learn organization and time-management skills. A parent should help put things away and keep a workspace tidy and organized, as well as create accessible and useful storage spaces for supplies and gear. WHO IS DR. LEVINE? Dr. Mel Levine, professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School, is the founder of the All Kinds of Minds institute, director of the Center for Development and Learning, and author of "A Mind at a Time," "The Myth of Laziness," and other practical guides on the subject of learning and development. For more information, visit Web site www.allkindsofminds.com.