Janet Chambers - Ready, Set, Read: Building a Love of Letters and Literacy Through Fun Phonics Activities

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Child Development, Brain Research, and Multisensory Learning

Why Use a Multisensory Approach?

If friends show you photographs they took on their vacation, you show polite interest. If they show you photographs of a place you have actually been to, you probably will have genuine interest. Reference points aid our recall of something we understand. If we look through our own photographs, they conjure up a moment, a feeling, an experience. Each photograph can bring to mind people, places, sounds, sights, smells, tastes, emotions, and other memories. The photograph is a trigger, a starting point, to retrieve a real experience.

Teachers are faced with many opportunities and challenging responsibilities. Our primary job is to provide education in the form of meaningful experiences. If our teaching does not mean something to our students, we are wasting both our time and theirs. We cannot rely on books and flat images to provide the kinds of hands-on experiences that will spur our students growth.

Experts in brain theory believe that emotional experiences stimulate the brain, and this in turn helps us to retrieve stored information efficiently. If the emotional experiences are positive, learning will be a happy experience (Jensen 1998). We all know that if we feel good about something, well want to do it again. Our young children are natural scientists; they thrive on pleasurable hands-on discoveries. A well-prepared multisensory approach in the classroom can provide such positive, stimulating learning experiences.