Visual Learning with Cartoons

We love visual learning resources at our house. Any home school materials I can find with pictures are always a hit. One of our boys especially loves cartoons. Did you know that the visual learner can learn advanced subjects with cartoons, will remember EVERY detail and NEVER forget it? Try and teach the same child the same material from a text book with little or no visuals, and they will struggle over and over to remember any of it at all. Isn't the mind a fascinating thing? But it's true. Just look at how your child will remember every detail of Superman's abilities, or each and every one of Pokemon's powers. If all of school was just cartoons, every kid would be brilliant. All kids deserve a chance to be brilliant.

 I am convinced that boys especially are visual learners. I believe they struggle in regular classroom situations because of the lack of visual material available to them for learning. Over the years we have discovered several great books that teach with this method. There are more and more being published. Someone has finally gotten the message.

Our first love was Vocabulary Cartoons is available on Amazon. Vocabulary Cartoons is written Sam, Max and Brian Burchers. Each vocabulary word is pictured with a cartoon illustration and rhyming mnemonics. What's a mnemonic? It simply means "assisting the memory". For example, the word "abduct" is spelled in phononetically, has the definition, and a similar word to help kids remember it. In this case the similar word is DUCK. The authors also use silly sentences to help kids remember the word further. This is a great book for the upper elementary grades or students in the Grammar phase of developement. The auditory factor comes into play here as well. Using both visual and auditory stimulation helps things "stick" in the mind. Our son is now in high school and every once in a while I pull this book out and quiz him on some of the words. He always knows them all, and it's been years since we studied this book. 

There are now more books in this series here's another favorite:

This version of Vocabulary Cartoons SAT Word Power is a great resource preparing for the SAT exams, and for learning high school level vocabulary. It's even fun to just look at. I think we started using these books when our kids were in grammar school and middle school. We have never stopped. We love it as a coffee table book. You can find other books in this series on Amazon. 

Recently though, we discovered some new material at our local library.

This series is our new love. The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry by Larry Gonick and Craig Criddle is fabulous.  These authors make complex subjects easy and fun to learn. Your kids won't want to put them down. Who could blame them? Learning SHOULD be effortless and fun. If your working too hard at it, try a different method. It shouldn't be torture. We have also been captivated by the other titles in this series. 

Cartoon Guide to Calculus

Cartoon Guide to Physics

Cartoon Guide to Genetics

Cartoon Guide to Statistics

You know the best part? These books are so reasonably priced! You can score them on Amazon for about $11.00 a piece! They would also make great gifts! Fill up your shelves with these incredibly valuable tools. I am always afraid treasures like these will go out of print and will no longer be available. Isn't that silly? 

Designer Mom