How to Teach the Auditory Learner

Auditory learners learn better by hearing information. As a visual learner, I was most comfortable teaching to the visual learner and had to make sure that I also reached learners with other learning styles. I was lucky because my husband is an auditory learner so I was able to try lessons on him to see if it worked for auditory learners.

Here are some techniques that worked well with my auditory learners.
• When presenting reading material to the class, have the material read aloud whenever possible.
• Use of tape recorder to prerecord material so the student can use headphones and hear it while the rest of the class is reading it silently.
– Use service learning students at local high school
– Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts
• Books on tape/CD: if students are reading books independently, offer this option whenever possible.
• Block out extraneous stimuli: have headphones available to block out background noises. The headphones were not plugged into anything but helped muffle noises from the class.
• Highlight essential information: use highlighters to highlight essential information and then read what is highlighted out loud.
• Present a small amount of work: give assignments in small chunks so it is not so overwhelming to the student.
• Glue 2 elbow pieces of PVC pipe. Have students hold one end to their ear and one end to their mouth. They can read aloud whatever they have written to hear if it sounds like what they wanted to say. This helps their reading and writing skills also.
• Read aloud any written directions.
• Have a student repeat or explain the directions.
• Mnemonic Devices – teach students mnemonic devices to help them learn new material (ex. ROYGBIV = the colors of the rainbows; HOMES= names of the Great Lakes; Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally = order of operations) or have students come up with their own.
• Musical jingles – let students make up a song to help remember information and allow them to perform it in class.
• Story telling – have them retell a story in their own words.
• Response modes can be done orally – instead of writing answers down, allow them to answer test questions aloud in a tape recorder.

These are just some suggestions that might help. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know because I love to add more to my list!