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Neurodevelopment Teaching Tip of the Month July 2011 |
If you’ve spent any time on this website, you’ve probably come across the terms left-brain and right-brain learners. Left and right
refer to the two hemispheres in the brain, each of which specializes in doing certain types of activities or skills.
The left hemisphere tends to deal with concrete bits of information, literal and linear reasoning, the logistics of language (e.g. vocabulary, grammar), and numerical computations. The right hemisphere tends to deal with more abstract concepts, perception, visual information, large motor skills, and holistic reasoning. Creative people draw heavily from the right hemisphere while factual, detail-oriented, “logical” people draw heavily from the left hemisphere. The perceptive homeschooler (all you right-brainers out there), will make the connection that certain academic subjects will favor one or the other hemisphere. If you have a left-brain child, phonics, grammar, the times tables, history dates, geography details, and science vocabulary will come easily. If you have a right-brain child, teaching those same subjects will seem like torture and you may wonder if your child will ever learn the material. Of course the flip side is true, too. Your right-brain child will most likely enjoy some aspect of the fine arts, be creative, like to move, be intuitive, have good reading critical thinking skills, and be able to see the significance of the big picture. If you have a left-brain child, those same subjects will drive you all crazy trying to deal with them. In both cases, you can take heart. With enough patient practice (easier said than done sometimes) and consistent modeling, your children can learn the skills that draw from the opposite side of the brain than what they prefer naturally. In the meantime, there is something you can do: develop the mid-line connections that enable the two hemispheres of the brain to work together more efficiently. Two popular extra-curricular activities actually do just that: dancing and martial arts. Both of these require the students to initiate activities using the left side of the body and the right side of the body. In some cases, the same action is done in first one direction and then the other. This forces the two hemispheres to get involved, which reinforces the connections. Likewise, any callisthenic that uses alternating arm and leg motions does the same thing. Crawling and belly-dragging army-style are examples. So is marching either in place or forward, while touching the left elbow or hand to the right knee and vice versa. The bottom line is that any activity that forces the child to switch from one side of the body to the other, crossing the imaginary middle line from the top of the head to the feet, reinforces the mid-line connections and gets both hemispheres in on the action. 456 Words To view more 'Teaching Tips' Articles please 'Log In' and visit the 'Achives' page. |
