OMK dropout. Ideas? Not listening. building up lit dose?

[Ecclecticmum]

Hi guys & gals,

 

We started our first week, and the eldest is plodding along happily.

 

Chaos is not, however. I just cannot see him being able to go through OMK for a couple of reasons, most I already have an idea or two of what to do about, but I'm kind of stuck on one of them.

 

He's not at all good at listening and taking in whatever your telling him (simple instructions are fine, more longer eloborate or missing ones are not i.e. Get the milk is fine, but if your talking about the broom and say "go get the green one" well, he came back with a green towel, and I had to literally put him in front of the broom I was talking about before he saw it). He won't wait for you to tell him instructions in a workbook, but will rather figure out what he "thinks" is supposed for happen on that page and randomly start doing stuff that isn't correct. Stories he tunes out, walks away, or will keep interrupting (peter rabbit for instance, he got hung up on the rabbit near the door and kept saying "knock knock, knock knock" and not allowing me to finish the sentence (that had nothing to do with knocking btw lol.) Obviously it doesn't matter what program/curriculum etc you use, your child needs to be able to listen and take in what you are saying, which he isn't, and needs to be able to listen to stories, and actually "be" listening and know what happens in the story.

 

Before you say it ( :p ) we actually read a lot in the house, we are reading aloud or making up stories to the kids all the time (in the car, bath, bed, meals, or just snuggling on the couch to read) trouble is, Chaos wants nothing to do with it. He'll walk away, tune out and start crashing his cars, being loud etc or in the case of bedtimes, will use it to snuggle up to daddy, whilst daddy is reading to all three of them, and fall asleep listening to his voice, but won't actually "take in" even a word from the story.

 

Is there something I can do to fix/help with this? I think he is more of a visual learner (I think, its hard to know with little ones) (remembers mechanisms and will try to explain what hes talking about by using his hands to replicate the mechanisms movements, will pick up songs and pictures from the TV, has always been good at puzzles etc).

 

I decided after a few conversations with DH to delay Chaos (5 1/2) for a year, and start Kindergarten next year. So we'll be concentrating on areas he needs help with this year, something like this:

 

-Core Knowledge Preschool & Activity Books (Eve loves the stories, and both Eve & Chaos adore the activity books, so Chaos is just doing the activity sheets from this).

 

- Continue Waldorf preschool (activity days Monday - Painting, Tuesday - Handcrafts etc) and homelife.

 

- Get some Kumon Skills books (cutting, pasting, mazes (he loves mazes) etc

 

- Use Super Star Speech Therapy @ Home program. His speech has improved dramatically, but I think this will be a big help for him.

 

- Movement activities, activities from Sensory & ASD books, perhaps get that little Oral Motor Movement book I was looking at (seems to cover speech & food aversions/pickiness which fantastic that it covers both) as well for some more ideas.

 

- Let him go in and out from 1st grade lessons (sometimes he'll join in if we are doing an interesting activity like drawing the gnomes or making projects or doing something messy).

 

So most of the above should help with his other areas, I just need something to allow him to take in stories and me talking for a couple of minutes (lol).

 

Thanks to anyone who can help :)

[Mom0012]

Have you always read to him? How does he do with picture books? When my son was the same age as yours he loved picture books, and I had been reading to him every day since he was a baby, but he wasn't able to transition to books w/o pictures. If I turned on a 5 minute audiobook in the car he would start whining and getting upset. He was unable to comprehend what I was reading w/o pictures. I wound up having him go through a program called Visualizing and Verbalizing, and within weeks, he was listening to Homer Price and all the Beverly Cleary books on tape.

 

If you don' t think that is the problem, do you think it could be an attention deficit problem?

 

Obviously, I don't know your son and maybe it is just a maturity issue. Just throwing some ideas out there for you to think about.

[kwg]

Have you always read to him? How does he do with picture books? When my son was the same age as yours he loved picture books, and I had been reading to him every day since he was a baby, but he wasn't able to transition to books w/o pictures. If I turned on a 5 minute audiobook in the car he would start whining and getting upset. He was unable to comprehend what I was reading w/o pictures. I wound up having him go through a program called Visualizing and Verbalizing, and within weeks, he was listening to Homer Price and all the Beverly Cleary books on tape.

 

If you don' t think that is the problem, do you think it could be an attention deficit problem?

 

Obviously, I don't know your son and maybe it is just a maturity issue. Just throwing some ideas out there for you to think about.

 

 

Link?

 

op- throwing this out there- but it sounds like he is an active boy. Sandra Boyton, Going on a BEar Hunt, ...books you can act out maybe?

 

Don't know what to do about the listening.

[Ecclecticmum]

It could be just the boy factor (lol). He is a "full on" child (to the extreme). I was actually thinking about acting stuff out, but he gets too focused on particular pictures or sounds (the "crash" of the car, or peter rabbits door as I mentioned above) so for acting out the story, he would probably just be the bear, get overexcited on the sounds of the bear "ROAR" and start hitting (the hands are not for hitting is a whole completely 'nother story. We are working on this). The only time it actually appears he is listening is the times when he is still fully awake during bedtime and is slurping down his sippy cup (obviously he can't make noises, and he's awake, and stuck in the bed, rofl.)

 

He does pick up songs very easily. I'd count him really as a mix between visual-spatial/bodily-kinesthetic & musical learning style. I've looked at the bouncy seat balls and wristbands/rubber bands ideas. In an ideal world I would just create puppets and scenes for every story we are reading, and keep his mouth full with his sippy cup. But obviously neither of those things are going to happen.

 

Bottom line he is very, very active (unless watching TV, but even then he's wiggly, and only watches it for brief periods between running about) and the biggest downside is he is VERY loud. The wiggly-ness I can deal with. But he obviously can't be listening if he is yelling, roaring and making humoungous crashing sounds rofl.

 

As for your q. He's been read to at least twice a day with a variety of books from birth, both picture and non-picture books. But he doesn't want anything to do with them, bottom line, if he can leave or distract everyone away from the story, he will. I've tried puppets (he will just start talking *LOUDLY* with the puppets), tried legos (just starts bashing and crashing them), he dislikes drawing except when he decides it will be fun, so drawing cant be a daily activity, tried stretchy fabric on a chair legs (he just manages to make even that super loud), tried swaddling (yep, I got that desperate at one point rofl, he just thought it was a game to escape it as quickly as possible), probably tried a number of other things I can't think of right now.

 

I was thinking something along the lines of BFIAR/FIAR might help, but I would love to hear other ideas, I am really desperate. I just want him to be listening to the story/textbook/anything, elsewise obviously, we will have huge problems trying to h/s him if we can't get him to hear us out about subjects.

[kwg]

I have to read to my boys while they eat and when they are in the bath (after they have had time to play)

 

ETA- and in bed

[bakpak]

Hey there...I could be way off base here, but it sounds a bit like my friend's son, who she FINALLY figured out had some auditory processing issues. He was a VERY bright boy, but wasn't doing well at school and the teacher thought he wasn't very bright. After my friend kept pushing, the psychologist finally suggested it, and that was indeed the problem once he got tested. He simply wasn't hearing everything you told him. So in the 'green broom' situation, maybe he would have similarly heard 'go get green' and saw the direction you were pointing. Having any background noise going on at the time (other kids talking, tv on, etc) meant that my friend's little boy was only hearing portions of what was said. This meant in school he didn't hear all the directions in school and he was doing similar things as your son....doing what he thought he was supposed to, because he didn't actually hear all the directions. I don't have a clue, but I'd guess you could easily test this out a little by going off by yourselves in a quiet room and seeing if he comprehends much better, or if he's more interested in reading a book if it's just the two of you.

 

Just thought I'd throw this out there, as I remember my friend wishing she had realized this years sooner because she was always getting frustrated with her son for 'not listening well' and he'd act a bit bewildered by her frustration, because he was truly very sincere. Once the teacher started using a microphone in the classroom, she said MANY of the children that had behavioral issues stopped having issues. Makes you wonder how common the problem is, if it's hardly ever tested for. My friend's son is excelling at school now and is MUCH happier.

 

Anyway, worth thinking about, either for you or others on here...

[freeindeed]

Maybe just use Wynstone's Kingergarten Series and A Child's Seasonal Treausury? Lots of verses, crafts, baking, and circle time. That's what I'm doing with dd5 over the next couple of years- in conjunction with Oak Meadow Preschool.