Different Student, Different Challenges

[Black-eyed Suzan]

Please don't quote; I'll revise this for privacy later.

 

I've been struggling lately with how to teach my younger son (turns 8 in the fall), who has a different personality and different strengths and weaknesses from my first. I haven't figured out how to inspire him to work hard and learn.

 

I don't really have a specific question. I just want commiseration and any words of wisdom.

 

Edited for privacy.

Edited August 30, 2017 by Black-eyed Suzan

[OneStepAtATime]

Does he need more movement?  More "purpose" to what he is doing?  Where are the specific disconnects?  Does what you have chosen require too much writing?  Reliance on too much reading?  Does he have areas that are struggles for him?  For instance, if the physical act of reading is weak but the bulk of the materials you chose are based on independent reading that could be seriously bogging him down.  Or maybe the physical act of writing is hard for him/frustrating for him but maybe the materials may be relying a lot on his writing.

 

I'd be trying to determine where exactly the breakdown is.

[Arcadia]

My kids were both disinterested in FLL, WWE, SOTW. My DS11 all along prefers public school style stuff and that works for him from kindergarten age. My DS11 is a lot more compliant and also more whining than DS12. He will do and complain while DS12 will just sit it out and be silent. However if the curriculum won't work for him, it would be so much more effort that it defects the purpose of homeschooling or after schooling.

 

Beast Academy came out after DS11 has already done AoPS prealgebra. He enjoyed the books but not enough to reread. No interest in the workbooks. This kid has already done random math kangaroo, MOEMS, math circle stuff and the workbooks are too similar to what he had already done.

 

For languages arts, Sadlier Oxford workbooks and Evan-Moor workbooks made him happy. He attends German class at a Saturday school and they use public school textbooks for 2nd language learners so he is happy with the curriculum. He loves concise guided style because he reads very slowly and needs plenty of white space. He is also using public school textbooks for Chinese.

 

For science he did lots of hands-on. He is my wiggle butt. History was lots of documentaries and he can wiggle while watching.

 

So while my oldest could easily do nothing but academics all day when he was 7, my youngest did most of his academics walking around with the book or sprawl on the carpet and would not survive more than two hours of book work daily. We school daily year round to spread the load for this kid.

[Black-eyed Suzan]

Thank you both for your replies.

 

Reading, music, and the physical act of writing are some of his strengths.

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He's definitely a visual learner and remembers anything he sees on video. He does like to have purpose to his work and is interested in "real life" - this child has never cared for fantasy books or fairy tales. He loves humor.

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When he shows interest in something academic and I encourage it in any way, he stops.

 

Maybe I should completely change his curriculum and see if that helps. But to what?

 

And how does one add purpose to academic work? I've always enjoyed it for what it is.

Edited August 30, 2017 by Black-eyed Suzan

[Arcadia]

He struggles with perfectionism and attention issues.

...

When he shows interest in something academic and I encourage it in any way, he stops.

...

And how does one add purpose to academic work? I've always enjoyed it for what it is.

When he show interest and you encourage him, he might be thinking that you are going to judge or expect something so his perfectionism kicks in.

 

For example my kids play piano for leisure, refuse lessons and I don't mind. My husband would borrow piano books from the library for them and it turns them off. My kids want to play the piano as a leisure/hobby not as an academic music performance subject.

 

One of my DS11's hobby is robotics. He just tell me what parts he needs and I see if we could budget that in. It is very own time own target for him. If I have made his robotics hobby into science coursework, he would have lost interest as he would be thinking he need to deliver A grade quality work.

 

There are some academic work that I enjoy but most are a means to an end. Same goes for my husband and our kids. Even my oldest who wants lots of academics strategize about checking the high school boxes. He also wants his down time.

Edited August 28, 2017 by Arcadia

[OneStepAtATime]

Only have a moment but here is an example of purpose as it worked for one of my DC...

 

Scenario One:

 

Parent:  Here are your reading and writing assignments for the day.  You need to practice your reading and writing because these are weak areas.

 

DC: grumpy, grousy, grumbly, frustrated, irritated, dragging feet

 

 

Scenario Two:

 

Parent:  Hey, I got you Season 3 of Hogan's Heroes.  Want to watch?

 

DC:  Sure!  

 

Half way through an episode DC wants to know more about a reference made in the show.  DC does some research.  DC asks for some resources.  Parent avoids ANY hint that this is a good thing, or schooly, but joins in research in a VERY casual, mildly interested way and discusses as DC brings things up.  Parent does not take over or try to tie this in any way to any sort of "academics".  Parent gets resources, including a multi-hour documentary that DC watches with enthusiasm.  DC does research, reads copious amounts of materials, writes up own notes, asks to go to library to see if they have book referenced on this topic from source found on-line, library has book, DC reads book, DC ends up learning a TON about WWII, then WWI and it spreads out from there.

 

 

Scenario Three:

 

Parent:  Hey, I found a great deal on that new Dungeons and Dragons book you wanted so I went ahead and bought it.  Here are the chores (called House Maintenance here) we need to finish so we can have time to dig through the book.  We can get started creating characters tomorrow and start playing as soon as we are done learning the system.

 

DC:  Enthusiastically finishes chores then reads the book cover to cover (including some very complex words he had to look up to get the full meaning for), writes out several pages of information/notes, pulls out quad paper to start mapping, and starts crunching tons of numbers and figuring out the statistics.  Stays focused on this task for hours each day.  Learns a ton.

 

In other words, in the second and third scenario his effort was worth it even though reading and writing are not easy for him (dyslexic and dysgraphic) because they had purpose beyond just doing academics.  And even though the purpose might seem frivolous/waste of time to someone else, they had a lot of relevance to him.  He learned.  A lot.  Just not in a traditionally academic way.

[Cake and Pi]

I love the examples shared by OneStepAtATime.  If you google "project based learning" you can get a lot of info on a teaching method that works similarly.