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

~ (Author) "Billy loved to invent crazy machines..." (more)
Key Phrases: following that seem, self smart, using multiple intelligences, Howard Gardner, United States, John Holt (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Does your child have a favorite subject, activity, or hobby? Children learn in multiple ways, and educator Thomas Armstrong has shown hundreds of thousands of parents and teachers how to locate those unique areas in each of our children where learning and creativity seem to flow with special vigor.

In this fully updated classic on multiple intelligences, Armstrong sheds new light on the "eight ways to bloom," or the eight kinds of "multiple intelligences." While everyone possesses all eight intelligences, Armstrong delineates how to discover your child's particular areas of strength among them.

The book shatters the conventional wisdom that brands our students as "underachievers," "unmotivated," or as suffering from "learning disabilities," "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder," or other "learning diseases." Armstrong explains how these flawed labels often overlook students who are in possession of a distinctive combination of multiple intelligences, and demonstrates how to help them acquire knowledge and skills according to their sometimes extraordinary aptitudes.

Filled with resources for the home and classroom, this new edition of In Their Own Way offers inspiration for every learning situation.

About the Author

Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D., is a psychologist, learning specialist, and consultant to educational groups around the world. He has written for Family Circle, Ladies' Home Journal, and Parenting magazine, and is the author of nine books, including Awakening Your Child's Natural Genius and The Myth of the A.D.D. Child.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher; Rev Upd edition (August 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585420514
• ISBN-13: 978-1585420513
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #48,133 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #30 in	Books > Nonfiction > Education > Education Theory > School Management
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  #91 in	Books > Parenting & Families > Education

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be required reading, March 13, 2002

By A Customer

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.

55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A light in the tunnel of failure, March 27, 2001

By	Shannon (Easton, MD) - See all my reviews

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It just makes sense, June 13, 2005

By	EmGee "Rolling Stones Rule" (East Coast) - See all my reviews

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.