Q: How do you deal with children who have different learning styles?

A: Children do have a variety of styles in which they learn best. Some children are fairly even in their learning abilities, whereas others are very uneven. It helps to think of learning styles as strengths and weaknesses. Though the best teachers try to provide curriculum material in a variety of styles in order to reach most of their students, teachers also have strengths and weaknesses and can prefer certain approaches that they find work with many students. Some teachers only talk or lecture. Other teachers manage to provide lessons in both auditory and visual forms, and more students get their messages.

Though we want to encourage teachers to use a variety of formats for instruction, parents can't really expect teachers to teach to their children's favorite styles. What parents can do is help their children understand their own strengths and weaknesses. They can guide them to use their strengths to manage and improve the quality of their work and boost some of their weak areas. Although children also need to improve their learning in weak areas, they can set somewhat lower expectations for themselves in those areas.

Here are some examples:

—Children who are poor writers but good artists can write their best possible book reports and can add illustrations or cartoons to their reports to enhance the quality.

—Children who like to write poetry or songs can add them to written reports.

—If children are good at diagrams or maps, they can add them to social studies and science reports.

—Some children are fascinated by collecting interesting facts on the Internet and can add interesting factual information to projects.

—Children who like hands-on projects can develop them for language, math, science and social studies.

—Drama lovers can work with small groups of other students to put on plays to share information about cultures in geography and history. That can include developing costumes that represent countries and times in history.

—Creative children can invent unusual ways to motivate themselves to practice "boring" subjects, such as spelling and math facts.

Parents likely need to suggest these ideas to children if they haven't done so before. If assignments are too far from the teacher's expectations, parents can write notes to the teachers to ask for special permission. As long as the students meet the basic requirements, teachers are likely to see the extras as indications that their students are motivated, and they will appreciate the extras. Some teachers will also suggest these alternatives to their students, but most will at least be accepting.

Parents should be sure not to blame teachers for not teaching to their children's learning styles. If children hear that kind of talk, they're likely to blame the teacher and use the parent criticism as an excuse to avoid what the teacher expects. If they develop habits of avoiding assignments in the name of teacher blame, they become habitual underachievers, and that can be a difficult habit to break.

Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is the director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the author of many books on parenting. More information on raising kids is available at www.sylviarimm.com. Please send questions to: Sylvia B. Rimm on Raising Kids, P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI 53094 or [email protected]. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.