Study skills and homework

[Toocrazy!!]

This seems to be the the first year - fourth grade - with what is supposed to be independent homework. Last night my son had three spelling sheets and a science pretest to complete. The science pretest took us over an hour to complete, and it seemed like he hadn't learned any of it in school.

 

He is a bright kid, gifted program etc, but it was hard - even for me! HA! It was just the textbook produced one, so I'm sure it was at level.

 

To my question, how much do you help your kids? I want him to do it himself and be independent, but at the same time, he had lots of questions. Ones I had to look up and think about. We had to talk about his answers. I felt like I had to do this in order for him to learn the material. We re-read it and watched several Brainpop videos on the subject.

 

Do you re-teach like this? Do your kids take notes? Re-read on their own? Or do you get this involved? I don't want to do him a disservice, but I feel his current study skills are not ready to be this independent.

[Toocrazy!!]

That is a good point, this pre-test was also for a grade.

 

In addition, he will be out of school all day today at his outside gifted program and the test is tomorrow.

 

I have also noticed that the students correct a lot of their own homework and she does not see it, so I'm not sure how much planning would go on:)

 

But I do think I need to learn to let him work by himself more before helping.

 

Thanks.

[Sneezyone]

In DD's second grade class they do the pretest/study guide thing in social studies. I let her do it on her own the first time (at which point she wrote down just the bolded and underlined phrase near the desired buzzword :lol:) but helped her correct it later. She's only Gr2 and this was her first one, but having helped guide her to the answers this time, and explained how to read for the content she needs (hint, the underlined words are not the answer to every question), that's it. We did that last Thursday and she's been studying on her own ever since. I quizzed her on Monday and she knew all her definitions so things are going well. I expect I'll have to look over her shoulder to make sure she's finding the correct answers for this year, and a few times next year to make sure she's remembered the skill, but after that it'll be up to her.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Sneezyone

[mchel210]

My 4th grader had algebra yesterday and today that was tricky. It took me a while to figure out how to explain the problem without using full algebra...couldnt do it...so I finally just showed her how to make a formula. Not sure how the typical 4th grader is supposed to figure it out still? I am sure there is some way to solve for these unknown numbers without algebra...just not sure how they teach it?

 

Today we had to use it again but I was able to show her both ways to solve for the unknown number.

 

Our class is also a gifted class...so not sure if that is why they are difficult...but I figured I would just teach her the easiest way to solve them and hopefully she can do it in school.

 

I think our teachers this year teach pretty good and we dont have to reteach much. I did have to work with my DD in 5th last year A LOT. Her teacher didnt teach very well. I was having to read and do the work...I still have to do that with my 11th grader as well at times.

[CathyEJ]

My son started having homework like that last year - they had study guides to fill out for science and social studies. I tend to think that homework at this age should be fairly painless and I'm okay with helping them out on things that aren't being graded. So, I started out by having him go through the whole thing himself and fill out what he could. Then, we'd read through the chapter together and he'd fill in more questions as we came across the answers. Finally, we'd look at the questions that he didn't get and figure them out together. This was all the studying he did for the tests. By the end of the year, he was filling out the whole study guide himself so that he didn't have to read through the whole chapter.

[MBM]

My sons' fourth grade teacher had them take notes and read and re-read the science text as well as come to class with questions from the reading from the day before. She was an excellent proponent of learning to read and understand what was read and they dissected the reading in the classroom. Doesn't sound like yours is that way, so at Open House I'd ask what the expectations are.

 

I like this. Science is especially difficult to understand with just one reading. Read and re-read. Take notes. Review a little bit. Science can be meaty, so teach your son to read a few pages, then think about and try to understand that material. Slow reading is okay. Also, make sure he doesn't skip the sidebar information and illustrations/captions if those are in the books.

 

What book is your son using, Toocrazy?

I have also noticed that the students correct a lot of their own homework and she does not see it, so I'm not sure how much planning would go on:)

 

But I do think I need to learn to let him work by himself more before helping.

 

It would be better if the teacher corrected the homework so she could see who was struggling and help nip the problem in the bud.

 

Your son is only in fourth yet, so you could help him develop good habits and then slowly let him go on his own. I did that, and it worked out fine. My youngest is in high school now, and he pretty much handles how he studies, whether he does or not. It usually works well for him although he still has to learn the hard way occasionally. That's okay with me.

[Toocrazy!!]

Thank you so much for this advice. His first test was today and I did help him study a good bit. It does take a lot of reading and re-reading. I think we will be better prepared next time.

 

I like the idea of reading a page or two a night, taking notes. I think we'll also try to do it before they discuss it in class. This should help it stick. There is a lot of information in the sidebars - examples that help. I will make sure he's not ignoring those just trying to get through.

 

It's been a long time since I studied like this so I forgot how to do it! Thanks for the help.