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Mirroring gestures and repeating a lesson’s words activates students’ visual, motor and auditory cortices. Mirror lessons involve seeing, moving, hearing and speaking. We don’t have one exercise for kinesthetic learners, another exercise for visual learners, another exercise for auditory learners. We address all learning styles simultaneously.

In Mirror Words we use two kinds of gestures, casual and memory. Casual gestures make lessons visual. If you are talking about active verbs, you might pump your arms as if you were running. If you are discussing the Mississippi, you might draw an invisible map in the air, tracing the river from Minnesota down to New Orleans. If you are talking about the Three Little Pigs, you might mime building houses of straw, sticks, and bricks.
Memory gestures, on the other hand, are motions that are linked to core concepts. If the lesson is on capital letters, you might raise one hand above the other showing a capital is a “big letter.” If you were talking about sorting, you might pretend like you are dealing, sorting, cards. Predicting might be represented by thoughtfully scratching your head. For a huge collection of over 300 core concept gestures and pictures, see our Power Pix. Casual gestures can vary from teacher to teacher; memory gestures should be the same for every WBT teacher in a school. Casual and memory gestures are powerfully communicated by Mirror Words.
Memory gestures, on the other hand, are motions that are linked to core concepts. If the lesson is on capital letters, you might raise one hand above the other showing a capital is a “big letter.” If you were talking about sorting, you might pretend like you are dealing, sorting, cards. Predicting might be represented by thoughtfully scratching your head. For a huge collection of over 300 core concept gestures and pictures, see our Power Pix. Casual gestures can vary from teacher to teacher; memory gestures should be the same for every WBT teacher in a school. Casual and memory gestures are powerfully communicated by Mirror Words.




10 Mirror Variations
- Giant Mirror Words! (Your kids respond, “Giant Mirror Words” and imitate your gestures. The same pattern is used in the rest of the variations.)
- Tiny Mirror Words!
- Rabbit Fast Mirror Words!
- Turtle Slow Mirror Words!
- Mirror The Words Right Now!
- Mirror Wacky Words!
- Right Hand Mirror Words!
- Left Hand Mirror Words!
- Calm and Quiet Mirror Words
- Arms Way Out Wide Mirror Words!