If you see your child in this description, then check out Linda Kreger Silverman’s book Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner. A very good overview of visual-spatial learners and how they learn differently then what is traditionally taught in schools. This book gave me a lot of insight into Jason’s learning style. The only thing that I don’t like about the book is the emphasis she puts on IQ testing…even though she admits that testing does not always give good results with right brained kids! She also focuses on highly gifted kids and that can be intimidating (especially if your kid was not making maps of the neighborhood at age 2!) But that is where she is coming from, so she spends a fair amount of time on the subject. There is definitely enough good info in the book to make it worth reading though.

Another good book with practical suggestions for helping right brained learners learn is Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World: Unlocking the Potential of Your ADD Child by Jeffrey Freed. Although it is subtitled Unlocking the Potential of Your ADD Child, this is more of a book about right-brained kids then it is about ADD (Freed makes the point that most ADD kids are right brained and that is the type of kid he worked most often with). Jason does not have ADD but I found much that was applicable to him in this book. It really helped me better understand how Jason thinks.

I have also created a Right-brained Learners book list that has additional titles that have been helpful to me.

And of course a list of resources would not be complete without an email list! A really informative email list that discusses homeschooling these creative kids is Homeschooling Creatively. The list mom is an online friend of mine who first suggested that I look into right brained kids for which I am eternally grateful! Cindy is a wonderful resource (she has 7 kids, many of whom are creative learners) as are the other parents on the list. And don't forget to check out Cindy's blog Apple Stars for additional information.

And last but not least, I have also collected links to articles and online resources that are helpful. 

Last updated on June 24, 2008 by Stephanie