Research

Enhancing Learning through Patterns and Multiple Encoding Methods

Learning improves when facts follow recognizable patterns, making them easier to encode and retrieve from memory. The more ways you encode information—such as drawing, counting, listening, speaking, reading, and writing—the more ways you can retrieve it. If one method fails, others can assist in recall.

Diffentiating Instruction to Learning Styles or Preferences Increases Attention and Motivation to Learn

Most people have a combination of learning styles that vary across subjects and situations (Edmentum, Inc., 2023). Identifying a learner’s style can help tailor instruction to their strengths while also developing weaker areas (Srijongiai, 2011). Research may show learning is best when integrating multiple learning methods and materials to develop cognitive flexibility compared to learning or preferred styles which produce little or no significance (Straub, 2025 and The TrueLearn Team, 2024). However, there is no denying learning or preferred styles often command better student attention and that can be all important when a student won’t give the minimum attention necessary to another method. You can’t steer a parked car. Once a student is motivated and moving in his or her preferred style, the teacher can apply research supported behavior, cognitive and learning strategies discussed below to steer the student into multiple sensory modality learning, cognitive flexibility, better attention and memory.

Self-Assessment Tools:

• Education Planner: http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles
• VARK Learning Style Quiz: https://vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/

Diffentiating Instruction to Include Multiple Sensory Modalities and Intelligence Types Improves Learning by Increasing Cognitive Flexibility and Memory

Most research emphasizes memory is better by seeing than hearing (Witten & Knudsen, Nov 2005). However, it is best when combining a visual or hands-on experience with auditory information, in that order (Elbaz-Deckel & Agadzhanyan, 2022). Unlike learning styles, multiple intelligence theory has findings about intelligence types that is supported by research (Armstrong, 2017):

• Everyone each type of intelligence in some amount.
• Almost everyone become competent in each type of Intelligence.
• The intelligence types interact in complicated ways.
• Each type of intelligence can be demonstrated in many ways.

Depending on the requirements of a task, either a single modality or multiple modalities will bind several features at once in working memory to complete a task successfully (Quak, London & Talsma, 2015). So, determining which modalities of working memory will be disregarded or used for a task demonstrates cognitive flexibility.

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), Cognitive Psychology and Learning Theory Methods Improve Learning

My teaching uses Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) strategies of successive approximation, paired association and extinction to reinforce attention and correct responses. It also applies cognitive psychology and learning theory methods of scaffolding (forwards or backward) and fading prompts in guided and independent practice and assessment until the task is mastered through automatic and independent production.

Mr. Brant Teaches Multiplication Using Multiple Learning Styles & Multiple Sensory Modalities

My approach learning styles from both the VARK (Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing, and Kinesthetic) model along with “Memletics,” which include Verbal, Logical, Social and Solitary.

According to Memletics, learning styles are not fixed. Instructors should provide diverse learning environments, matching and mismatching methods to enhance students’ adaptability (Srijongiai, 2011).

I have various strategies within three sensory modalities of vision (text, pictures, video), sound (narrated instruction, songs with lyrics and music appropriate for learners and subject), touch (movement oriented manipulatives, playground and computer games) that increase attention for engagement as well as more memory pathways for encoding and retrieving information for better memory.

Counting Principles and Early Math Learning

When Do Children Learn to Count?

Research shows that children, with or without challenges, develop counting skills when they reach a mental age of 4½ years if given appropriate social contexts and materials (Benigno & Ellis, 2004; Çakir, 2013; Durkin et al., 1986; Saxe, 1991).

5 Counting Principles (Gelman & Gallistel, 1978)

How to Count:

1. 1. Stable Order: Saying number names in sequential order.
   2. One-to-One Correspondence: Assigning one count per object.
   3. Cardinality: The last number spoken represents the total quantity.

What to Count:

1. Abstraction: Counting remains consistent regardless of objects counted.
2. Order Irrelevance: Objects can be counted in any order as long as each is counted once.

Factor-Product Tables and Counting Principles

My factor-product tables align with the 5 Counting Principles by focusing on place value counting rather than whole products.

Example:

• In product 18 (3×6) and product 27 (3×9):
  • The tens place counts up from 1 to 2.
  • The ones place counts down from 8 to 7.

This method observes cardinality by ensuring the quantity of a set is represented accurately within decimal place values. Additionally, it aligns with skip counting, which reflects the number of items a counted number represents, rather than the total numbers spoken.

Additional Resources

For a visual explanation of these principles, visit: https://mathisvisual.com (Not affiliated with this content).

References

• Armstrong, T. (2017). Multiple intelligences in the classroom, 4th edition. ASCD.
• Avanogy.com (2003). Memletics learning styles inventory.
• Baroody, A. J., Eiland, M. D., Purpura, D. J., & Reid, E. E. (2013). Can computer-assisted discovery learning foster first graders’ fluency with the most basic addition combinations? American Educational Research Journal, 50, 533–573. doi: 10.3102/0002831212473349
• Baroody, A. J., & Lai, M-L. (2022). The development and assessment of counting-based cardinal-number concepts. Educational Studies in Mathematics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-022-10153-5
• Benigno, V., & Ellis, S. (2004). The development of mathematical skills in early childhood education.
• Çakır, K. (2013). The role of knowledge of counting principles in acquiring counting skill in preschool children. Mersin Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, 9(2), 235-244.
• Cope, B. (2014, March 3). What’s the Use of Technology in Learning? Introducing Seven e-Affordances. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INC4s_kuC7g
• Durkin, K., Shire, B., Riem, R., Crowther, R. D. & Rutter, D. R. (1986). The social and  linguistic  contexts of early number word use. British Journal of Development Psychology, 28 (6), 998-1005.
• Edmentum, Inc. (2023, October 20). What Are Learning Modalities and How Can You Incorporate Them in the Classroom?. Edmentum. https://www.edmentum.com/articles/what-are-learning-modalities-and-how-can-you-incorporate-them-in-the-classroom/
• Gelman, R., & Gallistel, C. R. (1978). The child’s understanding of number.
• Levine, S. C., Suriyakham, L. W., Rowe, M. L., Huttenlocher, J., & Gunderson, E. A. (2010). What counts in the development of young children’s number knowledge? Developmental Psychology, 46(5), 1309–1319. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019671
• McCarthy, B. (1980). The 4MAT® System: Teaching to Learning Styles with Right/Left Mode Techniques. Barrington, IL: EXCEL, Inc.
• Nye, J, Fluck, M, and Buckley, S. (2001) Counting and cardinal understanding in children with Down syndrome and typically developing children. Down Syndrome Research and Practice, 7(2), 68-78. doi:10.3104/reports.116
• Paliwal, V., & Baroody, A. J. (2018). How best to teach the cardinality principle? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 44, 152–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.03.012
• Quak, M., London, R. E., & Talsma, D. (2015, April 21). A multisensory perspective of working memory. Frontiers in human neuroscience. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4404829/
• Saxe, G., Guberman, S. R., & Gearhart, M. (1987). The development of mathematical reasoning among children.
• Saxe, G. B. (1991). Culture and cognitive development: Studies in mathematical understanding. Hillsdale, NJ:  Erlbaum.
• Srijongiai, A. (2011). Learning styles of language learners in an EFL writing class. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 29, 1555-1560. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.11.397
• Straub, E. O. (2025, March 19). Roundup on research: The myth of “learning styles.” Roundup on Research: The Myth of “Learning Styles” | Online Teaching.
• The TrueLearn Team. (2024, November 18). Multimodal Learning vs Learning Styles: What Science Says. TrueLearn SmartBanks for Medical Exam Preparation. https://truelearn.com/resource-library/multimodal-learning-vs-learning-styles-what-science-says/?srsltid=AfmBOooDQFe2C0BTfXAgH-omyp6cep4B1TLhqWgnX6jBIb92EBvXWFj3
• Witten, IB.; Knudsen, EI. (Nov 2005). “Why seeing is believing: merging auditory and visual worlds”. Neuron. 48 (3): 489-96. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2005.10.020.