Working One On One With Students

In both of my classes, I have recently been spending a lot of time helping students one on one.
The other day in Mrs. Brown's class (kindergarten) I helped a couple students point to the words and read their "Yy book".  Mrs. Brown asked that I made sure each child points to exactly the right word and says exactly the right name. Some students struggled with this.  One little girl in particular struggled. After several failed attempts to help her, I discovered that if I really slowed down she could mostly point to the right words. After some drilling she could point and read that book like a champ. I tried a similar approach with another little boy, it did not work at all. To me this seemed to point out that different individuals have different learning styles.
In Mrs. Heaps class, we have been working primarily on  writing stories. While working on a story about Johnny Appleseed with a little boy I noticed that he could tell me exactly what he wanted to write, he just had a little frustration trying to get it down on paper.  I believe that if I could find his preferred learning style, this child's ability to write stories would improve exponentially. This is why I believe Gardner's theory is so important.
Prior to the 1980's, when Gardner's theory became widely accepted, teachers were generally using a direct instructing approach. I believe that the multiple intelligence approach has greatly improved the classroom beyond what it was in the colonial or even the common school movement period.