Visual Teaching Alliance

Visual Learners

Making up about 65% of the population, visual learners absorb and recall information best by seeing. Some of their primary characteristics include:

Love books, magazines, and other reading materials
Relate best to written information, notes, diagrams, maps, graphs, flashcards, highlighters, charts, pictures computers.
Like to have pen and paper handy
Enjoy learning through visually appealing materials
Feel frustrated and restless when unable to take notes.
May have exceptional "photographic memories"
Can remember where information was located on a page
Need a quiet place to study
Benefit from recopying or making their own notes, even from printed information
Have trouble following long lectures
Tend to be good at spelling
Benefit from field trips where observation skills can be used
Tend to be detail oriented
Are usually organized and tidy
Often ask for verbal instructions to be repeated
Benefit from previewing reading material.
Skilled at making graphs, charts or other visual displays
Write down directions or draw a map
Need to see the instructor's facial expressions and body language
Concentrate better with clear line of sight to blackboard or visual aids
Remember how people looked and dressed in the past
Prefer written instructions to oral ones.
Don't remember names easily.