Laziness or really doesn't know?

[BlueTaelon]

I'm sitting here grading dd12's history and she spent a while doing it Friday and I'm now wondering wth she was doing all that time. She was filling out a worksheet on the geography of India and the questions were simple and straight forward, the directions were to read the following statements to identify the geographic features and even provided a detailed map to refer to. Here's a couple questions and her answers.

 

Q. This river flows into the Bay of Bengal. A: and gives them water

 

Q: This is the sea into which the might Indus flows. A: To help have good crops

 

It was looking for the names of the river and the sea. She gave answers like this to pretty much all the questions. Normally I do this stuff orally with her but I didn't have time Friday with everything going on I NEED her to have some level of independence. My 1st grader is more independent then my 12 yr old has ever been about school work:(

 

So, laziness or she just doesn't understand? She just got up and I asked her about it and she says she didn't understand the assignment. It was straight forward imo and I told her she should have come to me if she didn't understand:( Its days like this I wish she could function in a classroom setting:(

Edited September 4, 2012 by BlueTaelon

[Hoot]

To me it sounds like a little of both. She probably whizzed through it too fast to really pay attention to what was being asked and really didn't care enough to ask for help. My DS can be like this sometimes. Next time I would suggest making the statements into questions.

 

Instead of:

Q. This river flows into the Bay of Bengal. A: and gives them water

 

Try:

Q. What river flows into the Bay of Bengal? __________________

 

Personally, I find the way it was originally written to be awkward. Perhaps the fact that it was phrased as a statement threw her off.

[redsquirrel]

Has she ever attended public school or a coop class with similar expectations? I have noticed with my son, and other kids who have never been in a classroom situation, that some worksheet type assignments really throw them.

 

There is a pattern and unspoken expectation to worksheets. Now, they generally don't require much thought, but they do require being able to find information in the text and writing it down. If a kid hasn't had that sort of experience it can be difficult the first few times.

 

My son has done this frequently and it is pretty obvious that it is because he just doesn't understand the purpose of worksheets. I have had some pretty funny conversations with friends about the way our homeschool kids fill out those sheets. Most of the time, it involves them either taking things to literally, being too creative, or over thinking things.

 

So, maybe the next few times you talk her through the first couple questions and then let her do a couple on her own. Once she gets the pattern and expectations down it will prob get better.

[Dina in Oklahoma]

Maybe if you do the first one with her, have her repeat back to you what she is to do, and field any questions before letting her go on her own. Most importantly, reinforce that she is to come to you if she has any problems.

HTH