The World of Multi-sensory Learning:
New Ideas Enliven an "Old" Method
Picture a primary school class following a museum guide through a dazzling set of exhibits. Walking along, they pause before new sights, perhaps read the signs on the walls, laughing and pointing. If an exhibit truly strikes their fancy, they may rush giddily to dig carefully in a sandbox for "dinosaur fossils" or to operate a model crane. The children's visit becomes a lasting impression. The combination of listening, looking, and moving around connects the children to the many new things they have discovered.
Trips to a museum may not seem like the cutting-edge of educational policy, but in fact they function very much like the educational approach known as multi-sensory learning. Multi-sensory learning makes use of the way our senses—sight, hearing and touch foremost—build one upon another during the learning process. Using more than one sense generates a fuller and more memorable way to experience an idea or concept. By offering children more than one avenue for experiencing something new, multi-sensory learning recreates the way children prefer to learn—naturally, with all their senses engaged.
Multi-sensory learning is also highly effective in creating the type of immersive experience and environment which has proven so crucial to language learning.
Language's power comes in part from the fact that it is not merely words—and even less so the words on a page. Language is communication in its most expansive sense, the core of our relations and interactions with one another. Language is alive! Whether you're learning your first or your fifth language, the process of acquisition is supported most strongly by experiencing language consistently and in a variety of ways, employing different parts of your brain and your body.
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Sincerely,
Katie Lagana
Early Advantage |