The concept of learning styles derives in part from Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. According to Gardner, intelligence is something multifaceted instead of singular. While society generally recognizes only those those who have high linguistic or logical intelligence, there are actually six other areas of cognitive ability: spatial, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic. In educational theory, these as usually refined to three learning styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic.
Auditory learners are those who learn best by listening or reading, which is considered a form of listening in that the student "plays" the sounds represented by the text in his mind. Auditory learners may also respond well to lessons involving wordplay or music. While an auditory learner may not be able to draw an accurate picture of a meadow of flowers, he may be able to write a poem or an essay reflecting on them very well.
Visual learners learn better through observing things with their eyes. While written language is visual, because it is symbolic rather than literal, it may not engage visual learners with the same intensity a concrete image. A visual learner might, at first, have difficulty remembering an abstract geometric formula, such as for the area of a triangle "A = 1/2hb." But after examining real triangles and seeing their relation to rectangles, the rationale behind the formula will be perfectly clear to most visual learners.
Students who are learn through action or physical sensation in general are kinesthetic learners. The key thing that kinesthetic learners need is, as the name implies, some kind of motion or interaction with the real, physical world in order to learn to the best of their abilities. A kinesthetic learner in a science might be better able to learn about Newton's second law of motion by kicking different sized kick balls thrown at different speeds understand that force is equal to the mass of an object multiplied by its acceleration than by reading about it in a book or seeing it demonstrated in an illustration.