Reading and writing learners naturally learn best by taking notes, choosing printed books over audiobooks, and prefer using closed captions while watching videos.
It’s easy to overlook students who learn best by reading and writing, because that’s often the bulk of class work. If students are already reading the textbook and writing information down in notes, what more can you do for them? As it turns out, there’s a lot teachers can do with interactive displays that help reading and writing learners succeed.
In this post, we’ll take a look at those techniques, and we’ll provide ways for teachers to accommodate this learning style in their classrooms.
Promethean technology for reading and writing learners
Promethean is well-known for intuitive education technology products, the most popular of which is the ActivPanel, powered by ActivInspire software. Each product comes preloaded with apps and charts designed for students who learn best through reading and writing.
For instance, the Annotate app lets you write on top of images so the student can see it on the ActivPanel. Annotating is one of the best ways that reading and writing learners grasp new information, which is why the annotate app is a part of the Classroom Essential Apps that are included on each panel.
You and your students can annotate all kinds of texts using a variety of colors and pens so the notes stand out on the display.
Students can also use the screen share app to send images to the teacher. Then, students can read what the teacher writes on top of the image. This is a fantastic way to teach students how to extract important information from a book or article so they can create useful annotations for later reference.
Reading and writing learners will also benefit from the Screen Share in ActivInspire. You can pair up to 39 other devices, sharing notes with your students. This way, they can read along with you, highlighting important topics and words and retaining important information their way.
6 ways to accommodate reading and writing learning styles
We have many more tips to share for teaching reading and writing learners. Below, you’ll find six simple tasks that engage the whole class while targeting reading and writing learners.
1. Create Outlines
Creating outlines about the current chapter you’re reading in a fictional book or a textbook is a helpful way for readers and writers to remember information.
Outlines are a fantastic way to give students a peek at what they will be learning in the upcoming lesson. They can also serve as helpful review tools, summing up everything the students learned so far. Remember, reading and writing learners tend to forget things they hear, so being able to know exactly which section of notes to reference comes as a huge help.
Work as a class to write the outline together and display it on the ActivPanel so the entire class can see and participate. As you screen share, ask students to contribute a section of the outline. Then, save your outline, download it as a PDF, and email it to your students so they can review it at home.
2. Use mnemonic devices
Mnemonic devices are fantastic tools for helping students remember abstract concepts they might otherwise forget. Which mnemonic devices did you learn in school or college that stuck with you today?
PEMDAS is one of the most popular ones. Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally is the device. Once you remember that sentence, you can remember the order of operations for algebra.
Encourage reading and writing learners to create their own mnemonic devices. Once they come up with one they will remember, let them write it down repeatedly until they have it memorized.
Of course, this tip can benefit all types of learners, so encourage all of your students to create a mnemonic device of their own. This will lend a sense of ownership to their work and will make them feel proud that they created something helpful.
3. Ask students to retell the lesson in their own words
Another way to help reading and writing learners in the classroom is to ask them to summarize the lesson in their own words.
If possible, give students the freedom to summarize in their favorite way. Writers might want to write down bullet points of the most important topics. Visual learners might want to create charts or draw pictures to illustrate what they learned. Again, this tip is not exclusive to reading and writing learners, but they may benefit the most from this exercise.
4. Provide highlighters and colorful pens
Reading and writing learners will enjoy taking notes when they have access to colorful and fun tools. Provide highlighters, colored pencils, and colorful pens to your students. Reading and writing learners are more likely to take quality notes they will remember.
If your students are new to note-taking, teach them how to create a key so they know what each color of ink and highlighter represents. For example, anything written in red ink might signify homework or test due dates.
When students write or share their writing and ideas with others, they engage certain parts of their brain associated with interpersonal communication and even empathy. Plus, they’ll be more likely to actively participate in what you’re teaching.
5. Assign essays and reading assignments
If you know you have reading and writing learners in your classroom, any essay or writing assignments you can give them will be essential to their success. These learners will enjoy researching a topic (especially if they’re allowed to choose it) and writing a paper, in their own words, on their findings.
Not everyone enjoys writing, and that’s okay, too. Maybe you can give different options for larger projects. Auditory learners can recite what they learned on video or in a speech. Kinesthetic learners can build a display.
6. Use digital textbooks, dictionaries, and encyclopedias
Finally, providing reference books in your classroom will give reading and writing learners the ability to look up the information and read for themselves.
Digital textbooks, dictionaries, and even encyclopedias can all be modern research tools for learners today. Those big, bulky books are a thing of the past (although plenty of reading and writing learners still prefer these “dinosaurs”). Show your students how to look up information from reliable sources. Then, they can read it at their pace and follow along with the class.
Do you teach many reading-and-writing students? We have the tools to help.
The edtech tools teachers have today are unrivaled. If you have reading and writing students in your classroom, ActivInspire software has all the tools you need to help them learn effectively.
Contact us to request a live demo so you can see it in action. You’ll discover how much easier ActivInspire and our interactive displays for schools make your teaching.
