Kinesthetic & Tactile Learning: The Complete Guide

A Need To Move

Does your child have trouble sitting still? Maybe they are always fiddling with something? Or potentially spend all of their free time running or playing games? 

If these apply to your child, they are likely to be a kinesthetic or tactile learner. Like any learning style, this comes with unique challenges and strengths.  

The important thing to know is that for many children, a constant need to move is not related to behavior issues, it is simply how they learn. Movement is a learning style, and once we understand this, it opens up many doors of possibilities! To help a kinesthetic or tactile student learn best, it is important to know that movement, story, and visuals are all great ways to keep them engaged. Let's take a look at the specific characteristics of kinesthetic and tactile learners, where they face challenges, and where they thrive.  

Kinesthetic Vs. Tactile

An important note to make is the difference between kinesthetic and tactile learners. While they are similar in many traits and are often grouped together, there are differences between the two. Some students may have aspects of both styles to varying degrees, but generally speaking, there are some key differences.

Kinesthetic - Typically is in reference to the need for whole body movement. These students possess a high level of activity and often they are very athletic.

Tactile - Typically is in reference to the need for fine motor movements. These learners tend to touch, fidget, and manipulate objects with their hands. They may be drawn to playing with mud, sand, or playdough. 

While tactile learners still learn best by moving or touching objects or manipulatives, they are more moderate than kinesthetic learners, who require whole-body movement. Tactile learners tend to develop stronger neural connections with the material they are working on when they use their hands and fingers to touch and manipulate those materials.

Read the rest of the article to learn about the key characteristics of kinesthetic and tactile learners!

Key Characteristics 

1. Need to Move: They wiggle, tap, swing their legs, bounce, and often just can’t seem to sit still.

2. Gifted in Physical Activities: Activities like running, swimming, dancing, and other sports are typically easy for them. 

3. Great Coordination: They have great hand-eye coordination, quick reaction times, and they have an excellent sense of their body in space.

4. Excellent "Physical" Memory: They attach movements to learning concepts for greater retention.

5. Trouble Sitting Still: They struggle with long periods of quiet and stationary activities.

6. Easily Distracted: They are easily distracted by external stimuli such as movement, objects, and visuals.

7. Lose Interest Quickly: They quickly lose interest when lessons are not engaging, such as lengthy periods of sitting and listening.

8. Difficulty With Steps & Procedures: They naturally focus on the whole picture and often find it challenging to create or follow individual steps and procedures. 

9. Prone to Burnout: Too much information or too much time on one task can overwhelm them and lead to burnout.

10. Highly Intuitive: They are usually able to sense what others are feeling and they often have knowledge or understanding about things that is not based on proof.

Teaching Tips for Kinesthetic and Tactile Learners 

Since the brain learns best from sensory input, a multisensory approach is most effective for teaching kinesthetic and tactile learners. This approach targets multiple regions in the brain and body (whole body/brain learning) via body movement, visuals, touch, and the use of concrete objects.

*Be sure to relate every abstract concept (symbols, rules, etc.) to something tangible that is known to the learner. 

Movement

These learners are better able to focus on learning and retain information when they learn through body movement and their sense of touch. In some settings, this need to move is seen as a problem or something to be corrected. A better approach is to harness movement as a learning tool.

• School: Let your kinesthetic learners move! Allow them to stand up, swing their legs, or even pace the floor as long as they do not disrupt other students; you will likely see their performance improve. 

• Home: Practice movement at home to find out what works best for your learner. Some children learn new material better if they are able to pace the floor while reading; others may need to swing their legs or manipulate an object while reading with you.

Incorporating related motions into teaching is another way to strengthen these learners’ skills; they learn quickly and permanently by doing, not from repeated instruction.

• 

  School: For every concept taught, let the child replicate the concept with their body such as in whole body spelling.

  Have your student trace an imaginary letter or number in the air with their whole body before writing with paper and pencil what their body already felt.

  You could also have your students make letters and numbers with their whole body or simply with their hands. When teaching sight words, demonstrate movements that mimic the shape and meaning of the word. 

• Home: Help your child store words or facts by creating fun, repetitive movements or using visual signals. 

Attention

Keeping learning experiences fresh and engaging, while minimizing distractions, is an important element of maintaining the focus of kinesthetic and tactile learners.

• School:  

  

  Keep their attention by combining visuals and related movement into your lessons. Allow them to use flashcards with the information they are learning. Teach your students to draw sketches or diagrams of what they hear in a lesson. Have them point to each problem as they work through it.

  Encourage these students to seek out “working spots” with minimal distractions.  Break up long lessons into smaller, manageable segments. Consider a change in teaching location (sit on a rug, sit at desks, go outside, switch seats, etc.). 

• Home:

  Create a cozy, private environment for your child to use as they do their schoolwork, incorporating different options for movement (porch swing, bouncy ball chair, etc.).

  Create a “study spot” structured to limit what the child can see within the location to minimize distractions. Let your child change up their homework locations, if variety helps them.

  Work together with your child to determine the length of work and rest sessions. Let the child set the timer. Before starting a work session, help your learner organize their assignments into individual tasks, putting them in order of priority so your child can focus on one task at a time. Segment homework time into short spans with breaks in between. For example: Do math homework, then take a break to run around the yard, do somersaults on the floor, or some other physical activity of the child’s choosing. Then, do more homework. Repeat this process until all work is completed. 

Directions 

As gifted movers, kinesthetic and tactile learners know how to catch a ball, but they probably haven’t thought about the steps involved in making the catch – they just do it! There are ways to help them understand that some tasks require planning steps and following procedures.

• School: Teach students to visualize what they are learning. If you are teaching them steps for solving a problem, have them go inside their imaginations to “see” themselves following the steps. These learners need to be very clear on the expected outcome before making sense of the steps. Be accepting if the learner comes up with different steps that work better for them. After all, the desired outcome is what matters and kinesthetic/tactile learners excel once they are clear on what is expected of them.

• Home: Share with your child the goal or what is the desired final “product” is. Next, share the suggested steps and have the child imagine doing them. Ask your child if they believe the steps will produce the desired outcome. Listen and adjust as needed.

Try this Interactive Steps & Procedures Activity activity to encourage your learner to practice planning steps and following procedures.

Hands-On Activities & Games

1. Pairing something that comes easy and is fun for kinesthetic learners can make learning more enjoyable and productive. Can they count how many steps they take when running from one point to another? Can they find the sum of the number of steps from point A to point B and then from point B to point C? Can they find the difference?

2. Integrate movement and learning by playing Pop Up or try this Hopscotch Activity.

3. Use SnapWords® and have your learner do the body motions listed on each card, securing that word in their vocabulary by allowing them to develop a physical memory of it.

4. Hang Sound Spelling Teaching Cards on a string a few inches apart, shout out each sound, and clap as you say each related word on the list, as you move along the sting.

5. Allow learners to trace letters and numbers on flashcards as they practice sounds and number recognition. Have them tap each colorful dot on a domino card while they count or prepare to add or subtract.

6. Multisensory experiences that incorporate manipulatives and projects help kinesthetic and tactile learners retain material much more easily. They learn better when creating mini-books, games, skits, and models, or when using building blocks, art materials, and manipulatives.

 

• School: Use sight word cards to build sentences or letter cards to build words. When students are solving math problems, encourage them to draw the problem or build the problem using manipulatives. Allow students to show their understanding of material in ways other than standard tests (skits, games, videos, sculptures, etc.)

 

• Home: Use building blocks or Legos® to help your learner visualize math problems. Practice sight words with a game rather than with paper and pencil. Be creative with your manipulatives – engage your learner in helping change up the options by finding different items in your home.

 

Conclusion 

Kinesthetic and tactile learners are often incredibly talented when it comes to using their hands and bodies, this can be a super power when harnessed correctly. 

Help your learner see their learning style as a gift – not a problem. By recognizing that they learn best through movement, touch, and visuals, kinesthetic and tactile learners can lean into those abilities as learning superpowers. Children can be their own best helpers once they understand their “problems” aren’t evidence of a disability, but of a unique gift!

Take this Kinesthetic/Tactile Learner Assessment today. If your child meets many of these characteristics there is a good chance they are a kinesthetic or tactile dominant learner and will greatly benefit from Child1st's multisensory resources!