How do I get my son to work faster?

[mom2scouts]

My 8th grade son may be the slowest worker ever. Every subject takes hours! Today I gave him Week 1 Day 4 lesson from WWS1. I know it's called a challenge lesson and writing is tough for him, but should it have taken him 2 hours and 20 minutes? I even helped him with his summary sentences near the end. Math is the same way. He's using Lial's algebra and he only finished the first review section and a little bit of the second review section this week. He barely gets anything done. This was actually a problem when he was in public school for a year before we started homeschooling. His teacher was so frustrated by how slowly he worked that she yelled at him. I can't figure out how to keep him focused and progressing in his work. It's going to be a long year if every week is like this one. I feel like he's way too dependent on me prodding him along.

[mamaraby]

No idea. My son is slower than molasses. We've had some success with timers. I got one that was an app for the iPad. I'd have it set for 20-30 minutes and he'd have to work for that amount of time. Then he'd get 5 mins or so break before another work timer would start. That seemed to help, but not always. Sometimes he can be really productive if her works in his room while listening to quiet music.

 

Mostly, if I want him on task, I have to give him external support.

[OneStepAtATime]

Could he have some learning challenges that are causing things to be slower?  Perhaps dysgraphia (you don't have to have sloppy handwriting to have dysgraphia)?  Or slow processing speed?

 

How fast does he progress if you scribe for him and allow him to make his responses verbally?

 

Does he type?

[EKS]

Keep in mind that writing can take a *long* time, particularly if the writer is working at the edge of his or her competence level.  So however long you think it would take you (and I suggest that you try to do some of the lessons in WWS to the best of your ability without peeking at the instructor guide to really find out) and quadruple it--at least--even up to ten times longer would not be out of line (I'm not exaggerating here).

 

As for the Lial book, two things.  The first is that I would go over each lesson with him.  You can split the work for most lessons over two days.  Then have him work some of the odds.  It really isn't necessary for a student to work all of the odds for every section.  Also, have him do as much orally as possible--that can really cut down on the time.  Again, I would work the problems that you're assigning yourself first (not every time, just to get an idea) and then quadruple the amount of time it takes.  Also, check his answers as he goes--so have him tell you his answers and you check them against the solution manual (or a copy of the back of the answers in the back of the book).  Getting that feedback for each problem can be motivating.

 

I would also stay in the room with him as he works and ask periodically how it's going.

[Tess in the Burbs]

LOL!!!

 

I found writing was a long time event for my kids.  It's gotten better.  We started with IEW a few years ago and the structure was immensely helpful.  As far as working at a decent pace...Mine needs motivation.  Today he wants to play outside...he's rushing through things.  But on a day with no plans he will take until dinner time.  I think exercise and lots of little breaks help.  Breaking assignments down into small parts.  Typing vs writing by hand. 

[tampamommy]

A couple of questions for you to consider: is he doing a good job on the assignments but just taking a long time to do them? Does he have good recall and have a proficient understand the material he is learning when he is done?

 

When ds was middle-school aged, he took a lot of time to do every subject. It was frustrating until I realized that he was truly learning. I mean, learning such that he had no need to study for tests. He explained to me at the end of 8th grade that he had figured out the way he learned best was by taking the time upfront to really learn and understand the material. And then, he really knew it. He could recall it, apply it and explain it. This was also his preferred way of learning.

 

I thought perhaps he would not be able to maintain this methodology through high school due to time constraints...and yet, he did, even while doing a lot of dual enrollment coursework at a private college. I thought he would need to study for the SAT etc....but it turns out he had such good recall, he didn't need to. I thought he might need to change his approach during college...yet, to a great extent, it is still working for him at one of the most rigorous schools in the country. He does now need to study for tests at times though :). But that time is relatively minimal because of his learning style and the time he puts in at the front end.

 

Yes, I did need to prod him and sometimes use timers to keep him on track when he was younger. But in the end, he had figured out what worked best for him, and it continues to serve him very well. Just food for thought.

[deerforest]

My daughter actually has become more efficient and faster by having a set time limit for work on a subject. I moved away from saying "you must complete X" and instead I say "you must work on this subject for x number of minutes. If you don't finish all the tasks, stop anyway." It sounds strange but it helped us get better at estimating a realistic workload for her -- both in terms of ability to complete and in terms of what she really needs to do. She is no longer getting overwhelmed because she just knows she has to dedicate x amount of time to the subject and can move on. Now, clearly, if she isn't completing any work within that time limit, that's a problem, but it hasn't been an issue. I've found her able to be more efficient and effective at managing her work. 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2016 by deerforest

[Garga]

Lials. Oh my Lials! We finished it up over the summer because I didn't realize that we were getting so far behind because my son was slow.

 

Map out how much he has to do each day to get it done on time. The lessons are broken down by objectives and examples, but the practice problems are all related to the examples. We found that we could learn about 3 examples a day and do the odds for those three examples. So, pretty much all sections were 2 days for learning, but a few were longer if there were more than 6 or so examples in them.

 

We finally bought the CD's that go with it where someone explains the lesson. It was better for us. I would stumble a little bit explaining the lessons and he needed someone to be smooth in their explanation.

 

We would watch the CD until it reached the example that I wanted to stop at and then we'd pause it until the next day.

 

We'd then work the sidebar problems together, referring to the text in the center as needed. Then, I'd assign the odds for him to do. At the beginning of the year I thought it would take an hour, but I was off. It takes more like 1.5 hours or even 2. Many times I'd say, "Just do 5 problems and then have me check them." I didn't like to leave him dangling and doing 15 problems wrong and have to redo them. Better to check little by little, plus it gave him a mini-break after 5 problems.

 

Also, the chapter reviews took 2-3 days. And tests were a full day.

 

This year my son is going very sloooowly with some outlining of the text for history and doing worksheets/quizzes for biology. It took him a full hour to outline 2 pages of his history book on Friday. So, I had to sit with him for the next 4 pages and do the outline with him, teaching him how to do it. He was doing too much and getting distracted. It took us together, reading out loud, 30 minutes for the last 4 pages. I told him that he should be able to read, absorb, and outline each section (they're all about 6 pages) in 45 minutes from now on. (Not 55 for 2 pages.). But all next week, I'm going to do it with him to show him how.

 

For the biology, I did the worksheets/quizzes for myself and finished them in 6 minutes. So I told him he had 20 minutes. I told him how my mom got a job doing small welding. She said, "How many pieces should I weld each day?" The boss said, 'Oh...um...1700." The first day she did 1200. The next, 1500. Then the third 1800. The boss came to her and said, "What is going on!? No one has ever done that many before!" She said, "You told me to do 1700, so I did!" She was confused. He said he'd just made that up.

 

Sometimes when you are given a goal, you are able to reach it. So, I told my son that his goal is 20 minutes. Since I can do them in 6, I'm giving him 3 times the time, because I'm 43 and have had more years of experience. But for him at 14, he should be fine in 20. The day before, the bio quiz took 55 minutes to do. The day I told him the story and gave him the 20 minute goal, he did his quiz in 10 minutes. Now, he rushed and got a couple wrong, so I told him we'll work on figuring out the sweet spot of keeping to a short time, but not rushing.

 

Last year we used timers for each subject. It helped. The kids liked knowing when something would end. If they fooled around in that time, then they had to work on it after school was done.

 

These things aren't magic bullets. They won't solve everything. But they are little tools that might help a little bit. And every little bit counts!

Edited August 28, 2016 by Garga

[redsquirrel]

My 8th grade son may be the slowest worker ever. Every subject takes hours! Today I gave him Week 1 Day 4 lesson from WWS1. I know it's called a challenge lesson and writing is tough for him, but should it have taken him 2 hours and 20 minutes? I even helped him with his summary sentences near the end. Math is the same way. He's using Lial's algebra and he only finished the first review section and a little bit of the second review section this week. He barely gets anything done. This was actually a problem when he was in public school for a year before we started homeschooling. His teacher was so frustrated by how slowly he worked that she yelled at him. I can't figure out how to keep him focused and progressing in his work. It's going to be a long year if every week is like this one. I feel like he's way too dependent on me prodding him along.

 

Do you have any reason to think that he might have an LD?  That doesn't sound typical. 

[2_girls_mommy]

This is my dd too. She has no learning disabilities. In fact, she's quite bright, probably gifted if I had ever gone that testing route. But she also has ADHD- inattentive.

 

For the two programs you are talking about I have the same issues. We only aim to do about 1.5 to 2 lessons of Lial's in a 4 day school week. (and she still usually has homework from that over the weekend.) The first day we read through the lesson and work the examples. The second day she is supposed to complete the odds and all word problems of a lesson. But it never happens in one day. That usually takes another day. Then the last day we start the next lesson and get started on it. That equals about a chapter a month, which is enough time to finish the nine chapters in the book in a school year.

 

WWS, I don't stress it at all. Some lessons really take her a long time too. She gets like a writer's block. Nothing I can do helps that. But she is a good writer. She writes for R&S English and for other classes and we do it across the curriculum ala WTM. So we only use WWS when we aren't working on other writing projects. And it is slow going. I would consider it getting done in 2.5 hours ok. That would be an hour of our daytime schooling, and an hour and a half of her evening on her own in homework time.  We have homework time EVERY night here. I switch subjects after an hour during the day.

[Milknhoney]

You really need to know WHY he is taking so long before finding a solution. Is he taking a long time because he daydreams? Is the work too challenging? Is it too much work? Is he too much of a perfectionist? 

 

I have struggled with this issue with my son. Daydreaming has been the primary culprit. I tried many things, most of which didn't really work. He never seemed to care that he was using up his playtime. I bought a timer so that he could see how much time he let go by. That didn't really motivate him much either. It's only been the last year or so that it hasn't been a problem. I have no idea what changed. Maturity, dare I hope? Anyway, in the last year the "too long" problem seems to be more due to the larger quantity of work he's had. I think there is a pretty big jump from elementary to middle school. I don't know your math book, but when we moved from SM 6 to DM 7A it started taking him FOREVER to get the lessons done. Finally I have had to change my expectations. I now just have him set the timer for an hour and that's how long he works an whatever gets done gets done. Same with WWS. He sets the timer for 45 minutes. I don't remember anymore how long week 1 day 4 took, but in general day 4 is pretty long for the first part of the book and I often had to split it out over two days. Later day three becomes the long day. Some weeks, it's every day!! 

[idnib]

DS is also very slow, and we would definitely spend 2-4 hours on some of the WWS 1 lessons. Not all of them, but at least one lesson each week takes that long. I had him evaluated by a neuropsychologist and she gave him a diagnosis of slow processing speed. I am thinking about having that double-checked, because I later researched the test she gave him has some flaws. Regardless, it helped to know that.

 

It became a bit faster when I did two things: I allowed him to type instead of write, and I told him instead of doing one lesson per day, I expected him to be ready to go with Lesson 1 Monday morning of the following week. The typing thing helped I think because he likes it and he can easily modify his thoughts and errors. I'm not sure his thinking process is any faster. Saying he had to spend the weekend on catching up did cut out some of the normal kid-type delays and also caused him to work ahead on days he did finish lesson more quickly than usual. Now I don't worry about a daily allotment, and just move to the next WWS week Monday morning.

[Tsutsie]

I wonder if this is an age thing? 

 

Same issue here, but the quality and recall of DS work is phenomenal. He also does not need to study for tests or do any corrections to his completed work.

 

(Well, I guess I could always find something to change in a piece of writing, but I'm trying to be reasonable.)

Edited September 30, 2016 by Tsutsie

[My3girls]

Sounds just like my dd14 was in middle school.  I think a lot has to do with hormonal brain fog.  Her productivity has increased dramatically over just the past few months.  She even starts school without my asking more often than not. 

[MyLittleBears]

Do you have any reason to think that he might have an LD?  That doesn't sound typical. 

 

 

This.

 

My ds have a very low working memory and he took  FOREVER to do anything. It got worse as the work got harder. He may be struggling because it takes a lot of mental effort on his part. Look up working memory and executive functions and see if some of what you read fits into what you are seeing in your ds. If so, you may want to have evaluations. Shame on his teacher for yelling at him. It is so frustrating when teacher's ignorance discourages a child.  :glare:

 

 

 

ETA: It is well known that kids with executive function deficits, particularly low working memory, work 3x as hard as kids with no issues, to produce a fraction of the work. He may not be able to help it. My ds never worked faster no matter what I tried nor how much I pleaded with him. In the end it only produce either tears or a very tired  and discouraged ds. Evaluations were a blessing because I finally understood why he took so long and I was able to adjust to how he learns and what he can handle. 

 

:grouphug: You may want to cross post over on the learning challenges board. There are a lot of us over there with similar situations.

Edited October 4, 2016 by MyLittleBears

[HollyDay]

is he working or daydreaming?

is he dealing with any learning disabilities/delays

does he understand the work?

is he getting the correct answers just taking a long time to get from point A to point B?

is he getting half correct?

is he making "silly" errors?

is he able to focus for that whole time or does his thoughts get scattered?

 

Just an idea I heard about at a conference years ago.....IF you have ruled out learning or physical issues (eyesight??) and you are confident he knows the material,  then maybe try using a timer.  Start with 10 min (or 5 if necessary) and tell him to give you his best effort for 10 min.  Then, when the timer goes off, check that work while he walks around or "shakes it out."  Then do another 10.  When he can do that easily, try setting it for 15 and so on. 

[mom2scouts]

Thanks for all the ideas. I don't think he has a learning disability, but he's a daydreamer and is very easily distracted. With the algebra, I've been letting him do his work on a small whiteboard and verbally telling me the answer. Since I'm directly supervising and waiting for an answer, it's keeping him on task and is building his confidence. He's also doing better with WWS. I stay nearby and frequently check that he's doing OK. He's still not producing nearly the amount of work I'd expect for a student his age, but there has been improvement.

[1shortmomto4]

In your first post you said that writing is tough for him - tough in what way?  Getting thoughts down on paper in a logical manner or the actual act of holding pencil/pen to paper kind of tough?  The answer to that question could hold a lot of insight into why your dc is struggling.  Dreamers and distractions are common at this age/stage but you even said the teacher was very aggravated by his "slowness" and that should be considered a red flag that something more is going on than just brain fog.  Is this a new thing or did teachers/you notice this all along but never thought much of it?  Is he very creative and emotional?  Could he be much stronger in his right-brain skills?

 

If there is an issue with his ability to produce the school work because of the actual physical process of writing - he most likely does have an LD - dysgraphia.  Since you've taken some of the responsibility of writing and scribe for him and have seen an improvement then you probably need to consider there is something much more going on than meets the eye.

 

Sometimes kids, when they struggle within, will perform negative behaviors to get our attention and we can either discipline the heck out of the behavior or try to help them figure out why they are doing it and then work up from there.

 

I've personally experienced behavior issues with one of my kids and was told and believed it was nothing more than brain fog - it was the cheapest, easiest explanation but it wasn't the answer.

[Tiramisu]

I'm agreeing that a slow worker who easily gets distracted and is a daydreamer, who also has writing problems, probably has an attention or mild learning problem of some kind. That's what everything you've described about him indicates, honestly. It's not bad; he's not bad.

 

Some people choose to accommodate at home and are comfortable with that and all it entails. Some people choose to investigate because they want to find effective and efficient ways to help and perhaps get some protection for the future like accommodations for SATs and college. We are all different in how we perceive these problems, how much stress they cause for parent and/or child, and what we choose to do about them.

 

My personal philosophy has been to find out what I'm really dealing with and help it if I can, and to open doors and not close them. There are different ways to do that.

 

You are doing an excellent job accommodating his needs. That's very obvious. But you are frustrated. It's inevitable to some extent but maybe it would be less so if you got an explanation. I'd be careful because he probably senses your frustration and might be getting the feeling something is wrong with him. That's an unhappy consequence of not getting answers. There are moms I've met who are peaceful and joyful as the deal with these differences, and the kids have turned out fine. But if you are frustrated and have concerns about how that might be affecting him, it might be time to investigate.

Edited October 19, 2016 by Tiramisu

[OneStepAtATime]

Just for the record, kids with learning challenges like dysgraphia or low working memory or a whole host of things that can cause some academic challenges can also be incredibly bright, even gifted. Unfortunately that means that often the stengths mask the true underlying weaknesses and the undiagnosed weaknesses hinder the areas of strength and the effort the child is actually putting in is not truly recognized. Since they are bright, they should be more functional and if they aren't it is blamed on being "spacey" or lazy or any one of a number of things that don't actually address the true underlying problem.

 

Just my 2 cents...

[rose]

What helped for my ds was putting free time as a bait. Once he's finished a weeks worth of work he could have a day of break. The quicker he goes the more break he gets because they'll come more frequently. This has helped tremendously. Before we set up this schedule everything would take so long because he would rather be doing anything besides schooling.

[Sahamamama2]

I have one daughter who can at times be frustratingly slow (my 6th grader). I think she just loses track of the time. What helps is putting timeframes on her work list. I tell her that, while I don't want her to panic or freak out if she goes a bit over, I do want her to AIM at those timeframes and not let Assignment X take half the day. Example:

 

Composition, WWS 1, Week ___, Day ___ (outline)            Target Time = 10:45 am (based on when she starts)

Math, Lesson ____                                                               Target Time = ___________ (whatever I decide)

Spelling                                                                                 Approx. 15 minutes, so _______________ am/pm

French                                                                                   Approx. 20 minutes, so _______________ am/pm

Wordly Wise, Unit ___, Exercises A & B                               Approx. 20 minutes, so _______________ am/pm

 

And so on, all the way through her listed work. Either I put in the times, or she puts in the times, based on an estimate of how long it should take. This seems to have helped her keep herself moving along. ;) She doesn't always need it now, but from time to time, she returns to Slow Mode, and so the times go back on the work list.

 

Another thing that helped us here was to (1) determine how long I wanted my school day to be, and (2) determine a reasonable load for a week. At the appointed time each day, we are "done," whether or not she accomplished that day's work. At the end of the week, though, we roll everything not accomplished over onto Saturday. That motivates us all to move it along during the regular school week. Perhaps a few weekends of catching up will help your son to decide to move it during the week? Otherwise, you'll be finishing up 8th grade in July or August. HTH.

Edited October 30, 2016 by Sahamamama2