Multisensory Learning is Better Learning

Let’s Start at the Beginning…

When we take a picture of a baby playing with a block, we are not only capturing a beautiful moment, but also recording some of their early strides in learning.

At first, babies learn by putting everything into their mouths, but as they grow, they begin to use their other senses to learn about their surroundings and they begin to imitate what they see. They stack the blocks, bang toys against the floor, and play merrily in sand, mud and grass. Later they will engage in make-believe to connect to characters in their story books or with the friends and family around them. They will hold their dolls tenderly, will pretend to be roaring dinosaurs from the prehistoric era, and will whip up a meal of Play-Doh and rocks as well as any celebrity chef. Now contrast these experiences with a typical day in a school classroom where academic achievement is measured by completing a worksheet and staying relatively quiet. Instead of handouts and lectures, students need to play, sketch out the connections between ideas, clap their hands to find poetic rhythm, and create their own picture dictionaries for the words they are learning.

What is Multisensory Learning?

Multisensory learning engages a child’s different senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, sound, movement) to help them gain a knowledge and understanding of what they see in their environment. By incorporating these multiple pathways to receive and process information, children learn in the same “natural way” that they have always explored the world around them. Instead of the teacher being the focal point of class activities and student interactions, multisensory learning features hands-on learning experiences that combine arts and crafts, music, and kinesthetic (movement) activities, and scientific inquiry and allow the student to take the lead in their learning. It recognizes and respects learning differences among students in a classroom while at the same time supports the learning of all students through activities and projects that promote critical thinking, problem-solving, and creative expressions.

The letter B invites young learners to trace its shape with their fingers. Other materials such as shells, buttons and sand can be used.

Better Learning: A multisensory approach helps to scaffold student learning by providing a student more than one way to take in information. For example, students can design vocabulary flashcards with both pictures and words that they then use for speaking activities. By using different sensory approaches and language skills these students will strengthen their mental processing abilities, thereby allowing them to more easily make connections between ideas and recall the vocabulary they are trying to learn . More importantly, what they have learned will prepare them for more advanced problem-solving and critical thinking activities that require this foundational knowledge.

Motivation: Multisensory activities keep learning fun! They are student-oriented, and for apathetic learners, knowing that their interests and experiences are now the focus of their learning can be a game changer! By stimulating multiple senses, lessons become more interactive and captivating. And once students are actively involved, they enjoy their classwork and become more willing to take on responsibility for their learning.

How Do You Use Multisensory Learning in Language Education?

Multisensory activities in the modern language classroom look quite different from the traditional lectures and note-taking of classrooms in the past. Students engage in dramatic play, creative writing and story-telling, listening to the teacher read poetry to learn pronunciation and prosody, building sentences out of puzzle pieces. Activities such as these can be incorporated at any grade level and at any skill level, from the elementary classroom to classes for highschool seniors.

Multisensory Activities are at the Heart of the Hickey Method

The Hickey Method employs a number of multisensory activities to help children develop their reading, writing, and speaking skills. Throughout my tutoring practice, I have seen the benefits of adding more opportunities for my students to engage in these types of activities. No where has this been more evident than in my work with students with learning difficulties and challenges such as ADHD, anxiety, and reading disorders. For these students, the Hickey Method’s explicit, systematic phonics learning is reinforced through these activities to help them develop the decoding skills necessary to become stronger, more fluent readers. And fluent readers are able to see the fun and adventure of books. They read for pleasure and seek out different types of books, poetry, and writers for their enjoyment.

The typical multisensory activities that I use with new readers help them learn the sound-letter correspondence. I have my students write their letters in sand, in the air, and in clay. I also put pictures of the letters on my wall or in booklets and use different art media, textures and pictures so that they can identify letter shapes, their sounds and familiar words with pictures that use these letters. I have the students find a letter that makes a specific sound. I sometimes put these letters on the floor so they can run to each letter to spell out a word. When we learn syllables, they tap out the syllables on “syllable drums” that we make from coffee cans. The children consider this play–I know they are learning as well.

For more experienced readers, I have them use dramatic play to illustrate word meanings and how to build words from prefixes, roots, and suffixes. I ask a student to mime how someone would carefully walk across the street–or carelessly walk. They also show me through dramatic play how adverbs work to describe actions. Activities such as these are far more meaningful than a worksheet with similar information.

How Can I Support My Child’s Multisensory Learning at Home?

Play games such as Pictionary, Charades, Simon Says, and I Spy to help children make connections between language, movement, and things they can see in their environment.
Singing, dancing, and clapping to learn about rhythm, rhyme, syllables, and syllable stress.
Tracing letters in air or sand and using different art media (paint, shaving cream, macaroni pasta) to write letters and words.
Spelling words with letter tiles.
Using pictures, flashcards and picture books for learning vocabulary.
Spending time at meals exchanging stories to encourage both spoken language skills and family time. Even the meal itself can be used to promote learning through taste and smell.
Create collages or storyboards to make connections between ideas, plot elements of a story.

Q & A

If you have any questions about tutoring, reading, or helping your child, please send them to improveng.tutoring@gmail.com.

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