if you have a child who remembers everything he ever reads...

[EmilyGF]

how did that change your approach to homeschooling?

 

I find that my opinions change every week on what would be "best". What would fit this type of learner best?

 

Emily

[Kertie]

:bigear:

[regentrude]

My kids don't remember everything, but retain a lot from reading.

I would simply let the kid read a lot and let them tell me what they have learned. If I know my student retains everything he reads, I do not have to give reading quizzes and do worksheets -saves a lot of time.

 

In the upper grades, I would add note taking from the reading. A younger student I would just feed with lots of books.

[roanna]

I have thought about this too. My son is only 5 but remembers books and movies in detail. He'll tell the whole story back to me perfectly see I don't so a point to certain things that other kids have in comprehension. I am going to do other things when the time comes. I think it would be boring for him.

[acurtis75]

My dd6 remembers just about everything she reads and/or watches.....even if it was 2 years ago.:) I still do some quizzes and seatwork and use it as an opportunity to work on handwriting, neatness, writing good sentences, etc.

 

For example on SOTW we do the tests. She most of the time knows the answers...but doesn't always get them right because she rushes, doesn't focus, etc. We will go back over the test together and when we look at it together she generally finds her own mistakes. I also correct any grammar or punctuation issues.

 

One adjustment I have made is not really doing any reading comprehension. We discuss what she's read and work on narrations, etc as suggested in WTM but we don't do any formal comprehension. We also don't repeat things as often as most curriculum outlines suggest. On FLL we did year one and then skipped to year 3 and we combine 3 or 4 lessons together at a time. For Grammar Island she basically read the whole book in one day so we didn't break it up in to individual lessons. We skipped right to Practice Island and just review a concept if she has trouble remembering an answer on 4 level analysis. It seemed kind of ridiculous for us to read three pages & then check her understanding/retention.

[acurtis75]

I thought I edited my last post but apparently I don't know what I'm doing..

 

 

I added that memorizing every detail about every thing you read is not necessarily an advantage when it comes time to write a narration. DD still struggles with condensing it down to 2 to 3 sentences. For grammar we skipped FLL 2 and will probably move straight to the new SWB curriculum that will cover middle & high school grammar over 3 years when we finish FLL3. We probably WILL NOT do this with WWE. We skipped WWE2 but when we finish year three we'll probably move to year 4 unless there's a lot of improvement this year.

[Donna]

I agree that memorizing/remembering everything is not always an advantage when it comes to narration or note-taking so I am working a lot with my dd in learning to condense information to make her narrations more concise and make her faster at note-taking. She takes notes for herself while doing PLATO Earth Science and ends up with 6 pages of notes for a lesson. So, we are working hard on outlining and figuring out what is important information and what she can do without.

 

When she was younger (and now), knowing the plot of whatever she read was never an issue, so we focused more on higher level thinking. I had had her reading level evaluated by a reading specialist (a friend who was at the end of her schooling and needed subjects to practice on) a number of years ago and the only thing keeping her "comprehension" lower than her decoding was being able to answer questions requiring inferencing skills. Most of that was life experience-related since she was very young but it was still a place for us to start. So, we work more on higher level thinking when I ask her about what she read. (She still loves to tell me the whole story, though especially if she really likes a book.)

[Dmmetler]

I'm having to actively teach summarizing and picking out the most important details, because if you ask DD to narrate back what happened, she'll retell you the entire chapter/section, in order, in almost word-for-word detail. So focusing on "what were the four most important things that happened" is important.

 

My other suggestion-don't buy books unless they're really cheap, because re-reading isn't a lot of fun when you remember the book almost word for word already!

[boscopup]

We just hit the library every week, and I do a lot of "book basket" books for history/science.

[LittleIzumi]

:lurk5: I worry a bit about the cyclical nature of teaching where I will be revisiting the same topics in later years, just in more depth (like biology or history stages) when she remembers everything from the last time almost word for word.

[Gratia271]

:lurk5: I worry a bit about the cyclical nature of teaching where I will be revisiting the same topics in later years, just in more depth (like biology or history stages) when she remembers everything from the last time almost word for word.

 

I was discussing this with DH just this morning. :001_smile: What I have done thus far is alter what my children DO with the content. Of course, they read from more advanced texts as they progress, but also I require them to do comparative analysis across time, read significant portions of primary source documents, conduct research etc. I am still "experimenting" with my eldest, but the analytical writing I require of her seems to keep her engaged in material she otherwise already knows.

[acurtis75]

We're only in year 2 of the history cycle but dd often picks up a book she has already read and reads it again....sometimes she'll just read a random chapter or start in the middle because she says she already knows what happened but she likes reading it again. I plan to just see how it goes when we cycle back through the ancients again but I plan to just do more analytical writing and independant research from original sources. I ask her critical questons and we discuss things but since her narration skills aren't as advanced as her reading comprehension & memory skills I figure on the 2nd cycle we'll spend time working on more advanced writing. She'll still only be about 8 at that time so I have no idea what we'll do for the 3rd cycle.

[Woodland Mist Academy]

:lurk5: I worry a bit about the cyclical nature of teaching where I will be revisiting the same topics in later years, just in more depth (like biology or history stages) when she remembers everything from the last time almost word for word.

 

 

What is it exactly that worries you? We are starting our second cycle through history and science and I am happy when this happens (I had hoped and expected it to) so she won't have to relearn material, but can instead go deeper and broader with new material and analysis. Also, there is more advanced output.

 

Would you rather the student forget? :001_huh:

[LittleIzumi]

What is it exactly that worries you? We are starting our second cycle through history and science and I am happy when this happens (I had hoped and expected it to) so she won't have to relearn material, but can instead go deeper and broader with new material and analysis. Also, there is more advanced output.

 

Would you rather the student forget? :001_huh:

 

And I quote, "I already LEARNED that!!!!! *quote nearly verbatim what we talked about last time*" Her input capacity far outstrips her ability to analyze & change her output. Hopefully when she's older, we'll be able to change our approach to include more analysis and different approaches, but right now it's mostly input and she just sucks it all up like a sponge and sees no reason to address it again later. Unless it's anatomy. :tongue_smilie: Heck, she's memorized stuff I taught other people that she happened to be around, lol. I'm trying to find different subjects to work on until she is able to really go broader. She's gone as deep as she can developmentally, and we are on the second time around for some subjects.

[lewelma]

I've had my son read different topics for the second time around. For biology in 1st grade, he studied ecology, human body, botany; in 5th he studied cell biology, genetics, and evolution. But with earth science, we really had done a survey the first time aroud. So when I handed him his first text book, I warned him, "you will know 25% of the material. Just read over it to review it, and then you will get to the new stuff." He seems to be good with that. Our main focus is getting him to be able to write down answers to the review questions. Given that he is using Tarbuck's College text, some of the questions require some thought (but it is pretty gentle). I don't think I will have trouble with Chemistry or Physics because we will switch to a math based program for 7th and 8th, very different from what we did in the grammar stage.

 

Ruth in NZ

[Woodland Mist Academy]

My daughter is much the same. We will wander through the zoo and she will start quoting what she's read about animals that I didn't even know existed. She does the same at history museums.

 

I have never seen that as an issue though. It's always been more of a relief to me rather than a concern. I just feed her more and more and more books. If she says she knows something and can prove it we move on. There is soooo much to learn.

 

I can understand why you might feel the need to wait to go deeper, but if she has a high capacity for input I'm not sure I understand the need to wait to go broader.

 

My answer has always been books, books, books, books, books. Now if you are expressing concern in regards to keeping up with her, THAT I understand!! My daughter eyed me disapprovingly recently when I couldn't promptly produce more books on Thales, Hypatia, et al. LOL

[Seeker of Schole]

Can I answer as the person who remembers everything she reads? Based on my experiences, more discussions vs. quizes or worksheets would have helped me. Also,more time for rabbit trails or self-directed learning. I ended up extremely bored and correcting teachers on facts when I was older because it had already been covered so much and I remembered it.