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How to Teach Basic Multisensory Skills

Using multisensory techniques, teachers, parents and caregivers can engage students on a variety of levels. Educating children this way is especially helpful when dealing with children who have special needs or learning disabilities. Using these techniques helps children to use many or all of their senses to understand relationships, discover logic, use reason, memorize and learn to solve problems. The idea is not to actually teach a child to do something, but to stimulate his learning process using a variety of senses.

Things You'll Need

  • Art supplies
  • Flashcards with pictures
  • Toy instruments
  • Jump rope
  • Bean bag
  • Puzzles
  • Blocks
  • Legos
  • Sand
  • Books
  • Audio books
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Instructions

    • 1
      Puzzles such as this one can help a child visualize letters.

      Use visual teaching methods to stimulate visual learning and memorization. Colors, pictures and other art forms help stimulate the visual senses. Visual learners also enjoy puzzles, mazes, blocks and Legos -- which can also help tactile learners. Building things with blocks and Legos helps visual learners understand spatial relationships. Use cards with images on them to relay a concept, or use a computer screen or projector to present an idea.

    • 2
      Listening to music is helpful in stimulating children's verbal reasoning.

      Employ sound (audio techniques) to stimulate verbal reasoning. Have a child listen to books on tape, podcasts or text readers. Music and song, rhymes and chants are engaging ways to incorporate audio techniques in multisensory teaching. In addition, have an older child read a story to the younger child. Hearing the story from a peer can be stimulating and exciting for a young child.

    • 3
      Playing in a sandbox appeals to a child's sense of touch.

      Use tactile methods to appeal to a child's sense of touch. Have a child sculpt objects out of clay. Let her play in the sand to help her understand volume, or have her paint a picture with finger paints. Teach math by having the child manipulate small objects to reinforce number concepts.

    • 4
      Counting while jumping rope reinforces number concepts and develops gross motor skills.

      Use kinesthetic methods (body movements) to reinforce concepts and further develop gross and fine motor skills. Have a preschooler jump rope while counting or sing a song while clapping. Have children toss a bean bag with each other and count the number of times they toss it back and forth.

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