Here are the characteristics of the routine learner: as the active learner can be every teacher’s challenge, this learner is every teacher’s joy.  The routine learner is the cooperative child who is motivated by a desire to win the approval of adults. This child is naturally responsible, studious and nurturing. In a children’s group he is the one earnestly listening to the teacher or helping the active learner to find his place on the page.
He prefers a quiet, well-organized and structured environment, and he desires order, consistency and clearly delineated responsibilities. Primary motivation is to understand and meet others’ expectations. A child will ask for clarification frequently in an effort to avoid mistakes. Hear lots of questions from the routine learner, this is a good indicator that he is stressed and insecure about the learning environment.
This learner understands information by identifying and memorizing facts and procedures. He requires material presented in a sequential, step-by-step manner. He is most comfortable with traditional teaching methods: written assignments, repetition, drill, textbooks, and workbook learning. While a child works hard to master sub skills, his weakness is in seeing the big picture – understanding the principles, concepts and abstractions. This child can decode every word on the page, but is not able to answer questions concerning the story’s plot or characters’ motivations. He can correctly punctuate all the sentences in his language arts book, but then not recognize when a semi-colon is needed in his own writing.
Remember, that routine learner doesn’t do well if he is expected to handle unrestricted assignments or to choose his own activities. He does not like role-playing, estimating, predicting or other exercises that require spontaneity, creativity or extrapolation.
Program Suggestions
Such a learner requires well-organized, sequential lessons presented in incremental steps. Look for resources with clear directions and standards of evaluations. Ensure your expectations are clearly articulated as you launch into a subject of study.
All program materials developed for the classroom can easily be adapted for this kind of learner, but however, look at a sample lesson.
The routine learner is the one who will have the most difficulty switching gears. He likes traveling by the well-worn rut in the road.
This learner will obviously divide big projects into smaller steps and segment out subjects for study. For accomplishing goals this is an effective tool, but make sure she doesn’t lose sight of the larger picture. He may have remembered the dates of the major Civil War battles, states of the Union and Confederacy, and so on, but does he understand how economics, politics, scientific inventions and religious movements congregated to create this cataclysmic moment of our history?
Don’t settle for correct answers on a multiple choice test; essay tests for the older routine learner are a much better method for assessing her understanding of the larger concepts. Younger routine learners orally have to paraphrase their reading for you as another method for assessing and reinforcing their understanding of material.
It’s not problematic because of his amenable nature to just settle for routine and traditional materials for this learner. But he needs to learn to invent and take risks. Reward your learner for creativity and trying new ventures: food, sports, travel, an academic competition, a creative story. Set up open-ended assignments into your program – ones that require him to make choices and develop his own ideas. Teach your child to handle these in a step-by-step fashion.
The routine learner has an instinctive desire to be helpful. An effective strategy is teaching other children. It can appeal nurturing nature and has the added plus of reinforcing his own learning in the areas he is presenting to the group.
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