When people talk about learning styles, they are usually discussing the idea that people learn through sight and sound. Some people add kinesthetic and possibly others. For the sake of simplicity, I will be discussing sight and sound.
As I have already mentioned, we define learning far too broadly. To make sense out of these two learning styles, it's best to identify what type of learning they address.
When I was in our mental prison system, my teachers explained these learning styles. The common theme seemed to be retention. Some students were believed to remember facts better when heard, while others were believed to remember more from what they read. This made it very clear that sight and sound were aimed at memorization.
Personally, I prefer not to think of memorizing as learning. Because of this, I outright rejected the idea that sight and sound were valid learning styles. They are better thought of as memorizing styles.
Regardless of your personal views on learning and memorizing, the broad definition of learning used by teachers has resulted in serious misuse of sight and sound. Teachers referred to these memorizing styles as learning styles, and inappropriately applied them to all forms of what they considered learning. They locked into the idea that the other forms of learning such as the development of skills and abilities must also come through sight and sound.
It seems absurd that anyone with a practical understanding of mental development would embrace the validity of sight and sound being associated with all forms of learning. Unfortunately, this concept really took off, and many people acted as though this had been established as fact. This has really helped prove how much we really take mental development for granted, especially those who belong to the teaching profession (although some are now starting to distance themselves from learning styles).
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