Sarah Giunchedi
Illinois Association for Gifted Children
Conference
February 6, 2012

Imaginative
“Big picture”
3-d mastery
Sees relationships
Recognizes patterns
Out of the box thinker
Radar scanning
Emotional intensity
Gamesmanship
Unorganized
Unfocused
Poor spellers
Poor with math facts and memorization
Fidgety
Daydreamers
No sense of time
Unusual, different

Left Brain
Step-by-step
Sequential learning
Auditory teaching
Words and numbers
Right Brain
Think in pictures
Thoughts move like movies playing in their heads

Information Age
Logical, linear capabilities
Based on words and numbers
Medieval clerk skillsreading, writing, counting, memorizing, learning foreign languages
Conceptual Age
Inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities
Based on images

Good at puzzles, mazes
Likes to build with LEGOs, K’Nex, blocks
Often loses track of time
Knows things but can’t tell why
Remembers how to get to a place visited only once
Can feel what others are feeling
Remembers what is seen and forgets what is heard

Unusual problem solver
Wild imagination
Love of arts: theater, dance, art
Seem unorganized
Loves playing on the computer
Has trouble spelling words correctly
Likes taking things apart to see how they work

Strengths:
Loves complexity
Loves difficult puzzles
Fascinated by computers
Great at geometry, physics
Keen visual memory
Creative, imaginative
Systems thinker
Abstract reasoning
Excels in math analysis
High reading comprehension
Excellent sense of humor

Weaknesses:
Struggles with easy material
Hates drill and repetition
Illegible handwriting
Poor at phonics, spelling
Poor auditory memory
Inattentive in class
Disorganized, forgets details
Difficulty memorizing facts
Poor at calculation
Low word recognition
Performs poorly on timed tests

Visualization
Hands-On
Whole Picture
Use Technology
Increase the Difficulty
Aha!

Show everything
Using color is best
Encourage the child to visualize lists, patterns, words
Ask the child to create pictures of the topic
Encourage child to draw or construct
Use Venn Diagrams, graphic organizers
Allow wait time for visualization of ideas

Manipulatives:Attribute blocks, fraction bars, patterns blocks, LEGOs, strategy games, base ten blocks, geoboards, tangrams, pentominoes, puzzles,
Hands-on Learning
Encourage Building Models

Often perceived as “slow processors”
See relationships between parts and whole
Don’t understand if learning is presented in small chunks or isolated facts
Have difficulty attending to details
Explain major concepts
Provide real-life scenarios
Use interdisciplinary teaching, so students can see the connections

Encourage the use of computers
Encourage and teach keyboarding at an early age
Encourage use of Inspiration for organizing thoughts

Excel at concepts, computation is more difficult
Detest routine, repetitive tasks
Does not learn by rote memorization
Do not force student to succeed at easier material before moving on to more difficult work
Emphasize mastery of higher level concepts over perfection of simpler ones

Typically can not explain the steps of their thinking
Understand all or nothing
Once an “aha!” moment occurs, learning is pretty permanent
Allow for discovery learning-tell the child the goal of the instruction and let them figure out the way to get there

Avoid drill, repetition and timed tests
Do five hardest problems first
Teach to find patterns and work backwards
Teach within the context of the entire number system
Do not focus on memorization of rules, formulas, steps and facts: focus on higher level skills

Be understanding that showing their work is difficult
Give opportunities to solve problems in their own way
Let them use their own strategiesdon’t judge
Hands-on-Equations program

6
7
4
5
2
3 x
1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
3 6
4 8
6 12
7 14
15
20
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
30
35
8
9
8
9
16
18
40
45
10 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Tricks to Remember Difficult Facts:
You have to be 16 to drive a 4 by 4:
4 x 4 = 16
5,6,7,8: 7 x 8 = 56
1,2,3,4: 3 x 4 = 12
Finger method for 9’s
Rhymes-bounce/jump to rhythm:
5 x 5 =25, 6 x 4 = 24, 6 x 6 = 36, 6 x 8 =48
Music-Schoolhouse Rock (song for memorizing three’s facts)

Many are late readers
Child may never be a good oral reader
Focus on sight words, not phonics
Poor visual memory-never actually look at words long enough to store them in memory
Connect a word to a picture instead of a sound

Junior Great Books program is great!
Program called “Mind’s Eye” out of
Escondido, CA focuses on training students to produce mental images as they read
“Picture at Punctuation” (Ron Davis) encourages students to stop at punctuation and tell the picture you have
Textbook Scavenger Hunts are great!
Study word analysis (Greek and Latin roots)

Good speed readers-encourage to use index finger and jump over words they can not make a picture for
Get content first, then read for details
Study captions, pictures
Skimming

Love to read books with strong visual images: fantasy, books with underlying theme
Love to read graphic novels, magazines, nonfiction or heavily illustrated material
Continue to read aloud to themrunning fingers under words as you go

Strategies for Teaching Language
Arts
Writing:
Visualize entire sentence before writing it
Tape record work and then transcribe
Use webbing to come up with ideas
Grade content and mechanics separately
Spelling:
Kids need to see the word shape so draw word on graph paper
Write each word on a card in color
Rhymes such as “I before E” can be helpful

Strategies for Teaching
Organization
Color code calendars, assignments, books, supplies, key words
Use an hourglass to help see time passage
Watches
Teach to take a picture of assignments they are given
Teach to create priority lists and schedules
Teach to highlight important concepts or directions

Pause to let words register
Encourage note taking in visual format (webbing, graphic organizers)
Emphasize concepts, not details
Distribute handouts

Color
Mnemonics
Humor
Meaningful material
Venn Diagrams
Rhythm
Music
Emotion
Fantasy
Manipulatives
3-d images
Exaggeration
Use as many senses as possible

When Interacting with these
Students
Teach child to take cues from classmates
Moment of silence
Reduce unpredictable noise
Use wait time
Let child completely finish answering
Discipline in private
Be non-judgmental
Focus on students’ strengths

Schools (and testing) emphasize verbal over spatial skills
In the last 25 years, college students have increased 50% but number of graduates in
STEM fields has remained flat (NYT, 2011).
40% of those planning engineering and science switch to other degrees, twice the attrition rate of other majors (NYT, 2011).

51% of Engineering Doctorates and 43% of
Mathematics Doctorates earned by noncitizens (Mann)
Individuals gifted in spatial ability are undereducated and underemployed
(Gohm, 1998)
Increasingly technological world needs ability to comprehend complex relationships and problem solvers with unique strategies (Shea, Lubinski, Benbow,
2001)

Many Famous Inventors Noted as
Having Trouble in School
Einstein-grades so poor, a teacher asked him to quit school when he was 15
Edison”dull student” so disruptive one teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything and thrown out of school at 12
Newton-did poorly in school, teachers throught he couldn’t learn daVinci-wrote his notes backwards (mirror image), spelling errors
Darwin-had to have his dad pull strings to get him into college

You could be teaching a future
Edison or Einstein and our world desperately needs these kinds of thinkers!

Effective Materials for Visual Spatial
Learners:
Attribute blocks
Fraction bars
Pattern blocks
Geoblocks
Soma cubes
Legos™
Mindbenders
Gears
Strategy Games
Destination
Imagination
Base ten blocks
Geoboards
Tangrams
Pentominoes
Puzzles
Construx™
Logic Problems
String Art
3-d geometric shapes
Set
Kanoodle

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Gardner, Howard. Five Minds for the Future . Boston: Harvard Business School, 2006.
Print.
- - -. Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice . New York: Basic, 1993. Print.
Golon, Alexandra Shires. Visual-Spatial Learners . Waco: Prufrock, 2008. Print.
Mann, Rebecca L. “Eye to Eye: Connecting with Gifted Visual-Spatial Learners
(Teaching Strategies).” Gifted Child Today Magazine . N.p., Fall 2001. Web. 27 Jan. 2012.
- - . “Gifed Students with Spatial Strengths and Sequential Weaknesses: An Overlooked and Underidentified Population.” Roeper Review Winter 2005: 91-96. Print.
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Berkley, 2005. Print.
Silverman, Linda Kreger, Ph.D., ed. Visualspatial.org
. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2012.
Visual-learners.com
. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2012.
Wallace, Kathryn. “America’s Brain Drain Crisis.” Americabraindrain.blogspot.com/ . N.p.,
8 Dec. 2005. Web. 27 Jan. 2012.
West, T.G. In the Mind’s Eye: Visual Thinkers, Gifted People with Learning Difficulties.
Computer Images, and the Ironies of Creativity . Buffalo: Prometheus, 1991. Print.