Customer Reviews

In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child's Multiple Intelligences

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If you ever thought your child might have ADHD, or any other learning disability, you must read this. If you are a pediatrician, it's likely you've been pressured by schools into diagnosing patients with ADHD. Please read this before you do. Teachers/educational specialists can really learn from the masterpiece:"In Their Own Way". The brilliant author, Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D., inspires us to "respect the garden of childhood" and not slap a "flawed label" such "attention deficit hyperactivity" on kids. Many kids have been branded as "underachievers", "learning disabled", simply have a nontraditional style of learning, Armstrong says. Each child has his own unique combination of multiple intelligences in learning, which must be honored and nurtured." We should not be putting these kids in remedial groups or writing them off as underachievers. Instead, he suggests: "We should use better teaching strategies appropriate to the real needs of the kids, based on their multiple intelligences." Better yet, Dr. Armstrong gives concrete teaching strategy suggestions parents and teachers can follow. He also lists learning materials, books, games,internet sites, and computer software to foster the eight intelligences. If we believe Dr. Armstrong, nurturing kids is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Children rise to the highest level of our expectations. Parents and teachers can have hope. A generation of "ADHD labeled" kids or "learning disabled" kids need not be thought of as patients needing lifelong medication or remediation, but as potential Stephen Hawkings, just waiting to be nurtured properly. It is our responsibility to help these souls find their own way. It is our future.

I read this book while on a 3 hour bus ride to St Mary's City with my son's 4th grade class. I was so overjoyed to have found something that provided a glimmer of recognition for my son's abilities. He was labled ADD and after several years of fighting it I was finally starting to say "Well, he is very bright, BUT he has ADD." Well, now I will say he is a Kinesthetic, Spatial and partially linguistic learner. He is bright and capable and he just doesnt fit into the traditional teaching styles, along with another 80% of the population. There is nothing WRONG with him. This book can help so many people regain confidence in themselves, their children and loved ones. Confidence that our tradtional school sytem has systematically destroyed in hundreds of thousands of bright, wonderful children by trying to force them to learn in a way that is not only unatural for them, but also, many times, impossible. This book helped me to understand my son, myself,and even my husband. Now I have some of the tools that can help me reach them. ADD may exist, but 99% of it is in the eye of the beholder.

I encourage anyone, everyone to read about these theories and apply them as best as they can to students, their own children, other children they may encounter, if you are stuck in that must-sit-still-and-listen traditional-mindset, you owe it to yourself and others to open up your mind to how kids learn differently. Would love to have this be enforced reading for certain teachers my children and I have encountered in the past.

I cried when I read the first chapter of this book. My daughter was so excited about starting school and immediately and passionately hated it. She hated sitting still and doing "boring paperwork, paperwork, paperwork". The school wasn't thrilled with her either and even though she was highly gifted classified her as a "problem child". Years passed in one specialist office after another with a myriad of labels being assigned. As I read the first chapter of In Their Own Way, I saw her experience and wished we had found the info earlier. It put us on a different path and helped us lobby the school for different approaches. I recommend it to everyone who I meet who is struggling with a child who doesn't fit the narrow educational mold. The information is empowering. The book gave us the data we needed to be a strong advocate for our child.

This is the kind of book you have to keep replacing because when you loan it out it won't come back!

I enjoyed reading through this book and exploring each facet of human intelligence. I am an educator and I was looking to further my knowledge on the Multiple Intelligences theory, and although this book is written for parents, I found it easy to approach as an educator. It is full of information that can be applied to expanding a child's experiences so that they can fully develop their interests and skills in each area.

Very useful book. I like that the author points out not to use learning styles/MI to pigeon-hole your child...because everyone is a mixture of these learning types and every child should be allowed to learn in every method (but helps point out strengths and weaknesses to aid understanding and enjoyment of learning). He gives a lot of great examples that were inspiring to me in teaching my children. He also gives many great references that I've ended up buying as well and been pleased with (for more guidance on what to do in specific areas and learning styles). This book is a nice mixture of theory (which is well documented), and practical ideas. There is a great resource section in the back that lists books and organizations by topic. I spent a lot of time reading reviews trying to choose some books on learning styles and multiple intelligences that would be useful to me in homeschooling. I'm glad that I chose this as one of them. It is my favorite so far because of both usefulness and writing style.

Taking a break from the book. The reason-I'm reading a library copy and I must get my own! I will be underlining and sharing and need a copy or 2 (one for, you guessed it, a teacher). I can hardly wait for my daughter to wake up, so I can try out some of the ideas. She is a "spatial" genious and graceful. She is having trouble learning to read. She will love kinetically, twisting her body into the alphabet. She will love drawing pictures to help her with words. I forsee great improvement because of this book. Every educator should HAVE to read it. Thank you Dr Armstrong.

In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child's Multiple Intelligences
We recently took on home educating our boys and I decided to read this book in an attempt to help me find ways to help our "struggling learner" to reach his full potential. I also needed to find ways to help restore their "natural love for learning'"
It had me hooked from the first chapter & I've just finished it. 294 pages in 1 day, a new personal record for me. WOW, what an amazing source of useful information. It has helped me "see" why the system has failed our sons so miserably & why it has killed their love for learning. I "saw" many areas in which to amend my teaching strategies to better fit in with their learning styles & preferences. It has given me insight on how to restructure their next school year in a way that would make our home education journey less stressful and yet more productive...
Had I read this book last year when we started homeschooling this year would have been very different & much less stressfull...
This is an absolute MUST read for ALL parents as well as educators. I believe if all schools implemented teaching strategies that addressed ALL learning styles in the classrooms, schooling in our country could be revolutionized. Unfortunately regular educators care only about competence in its most traditional & bookish sense - reading, writing, science, social studies & Maths in boring text and worksheets. Students who are talented in art, music, dance, mechanical repair, computer programming, or are creative in not-traditional ways wither away & become the underachievers, learning disabled & ADHD labelled.
Parents will be able to discover where their children "fit" into the system. They will be able to determine whether the school is nurturing their children's multiple intelligences. Textbooks (and their accompanying worksheets) structure 75% to 90% of all the learning in our schools whereas the part of the brain that thrives on lectures and worksheets probably takes up less than 1% of the total available for learning. The current "worksheet wasteland" would be transformed and instead we would have happier & less stressed children in our schools. Less children would struggle through school and end up labelled "learning disabled" or "ADD/ADHD", instead their true gifts and abilities will be drawn out & developed. These stale teaching methods are referred to as being "brain-antagonistic" and shut down potentials rather than open them up.
Parents with children that have been labelled "learning disabled" or "ADD/ADHD" will receive insight into the reasons why your kids have been labelled and equip you with information & ideas on how to change their learning experience. It will enable you draw out their inner strengths and abilities in order to help them learn.
After reading this book, parents will be more aware of labelling and the affects that psychological testing can have on their children. Parents will be able to make more informed decisions regarding testing, instead of willingly accepting educators' recommendations.
In short there are 8 different kinds of intelligence and we need to teach all relevant to our children in order to help them reach their full potential.
1. Linguistic ~ Word Smart / ability to use words effectively
2. Logical-Mathematical ~ Number Smart / capacity to work well with numbers and / or be adept at logic or reasoning
3. Spatial ~ Picture Smart / ability to visualise pictures in one's head or to create them in some two- or three dimensional form
4. Body-kinaesthetic ~ Body Smart / using the whole body & hands
5. Musical ~ Music Smart / capacity to carry a tune, remember musical melodies, have good sense of rhythm or simply enjoy music
6. Interpersonal ~ People Smart / ability to understand and work with other people
7. Intrapersonal ~ Self Smart / self-understanding & knowing who you are, what you're good at & what you're not good at
8. Naturalist ~ Nature Smart / ability to identify the natural forms around us
Address all these areas whilst teaching & your children are bound to succeed.

This is a fabulous book! It has completely changed my outlook on raising my four year old. I am now able to truly appreciate her uniqueness and see the beauty in her gifts. Armstrong made me realize that my daughter is NOT dyslexic nor is she HYPERACTIVE! And it made a big difference in how I react to her and how I can clarify her "mistakes" in a way that she'll understand...instead of allowing her to end up in some "special needs" class. The book also is full of great suggestions on how to teach your child using their unique style. For example, teaching my daughter word blends is MUCH more effective now that I know using pictures is what relates to her (i.e. to represent a "CH" sound I engage her in making a flashcard with a picture of a church...she LOOOVES to draw & is extremely creative in free-style drawings). She's an extremely visual little girl and has a huge imagination! That is a really strong gift in her and Armstrong made me realize that I ought to focus on letting her build that skill, more than focusing on "reading readiness". She dislikes "learning" how to read...though she enjoys writing her own stories. Instead, what she has is a strong Spacial & Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence and it's very visible in all the story-making and non-stop dancing she does all day long. Luckily she attends a Montessori school so I won't need to worry about her being pushed beyond her interests and into the "adult" paradigm of what a 4-year old should know or study. Instead, she is in an environment that respects her gifts and allows her creativity to grow. After reading this book, I feel perfectly at peace with the fact that my child doesn't WANT to learn how to read (though she can actually read better than kids entering Kindergarten). After all, the greats like Einstein, Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill and others were "Late Bloomers" who didn't learn to read until age of 8 or nine and failed entrance exams!!! LOVE this book!