Teaching attention to detail?

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Any tips?

 

My 2nd grader is a good student all around, but is not detail oriented. Examples:

- doing a math problem perfectly, except oops, he added when the problem was subtraction (or vice versa). He doesn't make mistakes on word problems where he actually needs to choose the correct operation,

- misspelling words when writing, even when they are given in a word bank.

- rush rush rushing through work and then having to redo it because of easy errors.

 

I'd like him to develop a habit of detail orientation since it is not a natural character trait for him. Should I think about checklists, or...? Other ideas?

[8filltheheart]

He sounds like a perfectly normal 8 yr old to me. All of my kids have done those things. For the first 2, I simply ask thm to go sit down and see if they can figure out their mistakes or circle them and ask for corrections.

 

The 3rd is a little trickier. It is more of an it depends scenario. If they rushed bc they were excited about something, I might not do anything. It they did it with an attitude, I might make them redo it. If it is really a habitual situation, I would build in np mandatory checks. So in math, I would take their addition problems and make them do the check via subtraction. If it is spelling in writing, I would make them create a dictionary for their misspelled words (copy a complete definition out a dictionary.). I would give specific rubrics of what I expect in their writing and not accept less. I would tell them the extras will be removed when they give their work the attention that respects their ability and my time as their teacher.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Thanks for the reassurance. It is definitely not an attitude problem- he is a very even tempered, easy going guy. He's just always in a rush- he eats fast enough to give himself a stomach ache even. We call him the "jeune homme pressé" (little man in a hurry) because he just constantly wants to move on to the next thing.

 

Another issue: not reading the instructions thoroughly and then doing an exercise wrong. Such as: "underline the ph pronounced f in the following words" and he'll instead circle the entire word if it contains ph. Normally I am not nit picky, but he is getting ready to take his first standardized exams (mandatory) and it's exactly this sort of detail that they check on.

 

So a little bit of this post is just about me panicking about these upcoming tests...m :-)