What does high school look like for a struggling student

[Kendall]

I'm looking ahead to next year.  What does your high school look like for a struggling student?  One who has a good attitude, but has trouble remembering things/procedures/processes/terms, etc.  One who doesn't always understand what has been read (does pretty well with fiction, and asks good questions when I am near).  One who does like to read and learn things.  

 

Do you minimize the number of classes you do with them?  What other things have you done?

 

I can learn from any of you who have dealt with this.  And I am also hoping someone who is schooling several will respond.  If it were just this child and myself I think I could do this.  But there are 5 others.  I can't give this child my full attention all day!  And that seems to be what is needed.  So I'm looking for ideas. We are inching along steadily but not speedily. I've just done the best I(we) could but I'm feeling the pressure of high school next year and the pressure of giving legitimate credits.  

 

Thanks in advance for sharing your thought and experience.

[Kendall]

Thank you, Margaret and tell her thank you for writing it!  I had not heard of this book, and I am going to get it.  I am excited to learn about it and I'm sure it will be helpful, even though I don't think I am dealing with any big, labeled problems.

[chiguirre]

Thank you, Margaret and tell her thank you for writing it!  I had not heard of this book, and I am going to get it.  I am excited to learn about it and I'm sure it will be helpful, even though I don't think I am dealing with any big, labeled problems.

Have you ever had your student tested? If you can't afford private testing your school district is obligated to provide it at no charge. Of course, private testing is more thorough and focused, but the ps is better than nothing. If you do get a dx, you'll be able to better map out what you'll need to do and what you should expect for your student as an adult. You may also be able to get them qualified for accommodations for SAT/ACT testing and college courses. If their problems are more disabling, you may be able to access job training and adult support services. I really urge you to look into testing so that you know what's up with and what's available to your student. It can make both of your lives so much easier!

[Lori D.]

I'm looking ahead to next year.  What does your high school look like for a struggling student?  One who has a good attitude, but has trouble remembering things/procedures/processes/terms, etc.  One who doesn't always understand what has been read (does pretty well with fiction, and asks good questions when I am near).  One who does like to read and learn things.  

 

Do you minimize the number of classes you do with them?  What other things have you done?

 

I can learn from any of you who have dealt with this.  And I am also hoping someone who is schooling several will respond.  If it were just this child and myself I think I could do this.  But there are 5 others.  I can't give this child my full attention all day!  And that seems to be what is needed.  So I'm looking for ideas. We are inching along steadily but not speedily. I've just done the best I(we) could but I'm feeling the pressure of high school next year and the pressure of giving legitimate credits.  

 

Thanks in advance for sharing your thought and experience.

 

 

I highly recommend getting some good testing assessment to understand what the cause of the struggle are, as you may very well be able to implement some specific therapies or techniques that would eliminate, or at least reduce, struggle for your student.

 

Trouble remembering / reading comprehension could be any number of things:

- hearing or vision impairment

- processing disorder

- visual reasoning difficulties

- vision convergence/tracking disorder

 

I know you mentioned you don't think there are any "big labeled problems", but clearly, there is *something* that is making learning in the usual way a struggle for this student. Physical issues and LDs can be very subtle and hidden, and may not appear as a "big" issue, but really trip up the student in many small ways -- so it is VERY worthwhile to test to either confirm or eliminate LDs as a possible problem.

 

There are a number of strategies that can very successfully help address weak areas, but you really need a good, thorough evaluation first to know what the issue is and what to use that will help. It may be your DS just needs to learn some tricks and tips and techniques and then practice them to improve his memory and comprehension. Strategies such as mnemonic devices, pre-reading tasks, PQ4R method for increased reading comprehension and memory, graphic organizers and other visual methods to help connect and remember material, visual note-taking methods, etc. (For example, DS may be having a hard time transferring what was read from short term memory (left brain) which is very numeric and abstract, to long term memory (right brain) which is very visual in nature.)

 

Also, we found that with DS#2 with mild LDs, that he matured during the high school years and began developing and getting stronger in what were his struggle areas; that, combined with past evaluation to know what techniques/therapies he needed to help him. So, we did not have to make many "accommodations" for high school as we had originally thought.

 

Things we did do during high school:

- used curriculum that was a better fit for his learning style

- a lot more one-on-one with him to ensure understanding

- work on developing study skill and test-taking strategies

- make sure his credits were credit-worthy, and that he had the minimum needed to keep college open as a future option

- made the writing count; since that was an area of struggle, we did not do as MUCH as I would have liked, but we made it count -- always went through the entire process, did a wide variety of types of writing, practiced timed essays from a prompt

- for the math (another area of struggle): not move on until he understood, or re-do if he was starting to get lost (our examples: DS did Alg. 1 all of 9th grade; then re-did with a different program for the 1st semester of 10th grade; later, he took 12 months solid to do Alg. 2, with backing up and re-doing until a section "clicked" -- he probably did the entire program 3 times)

- included a lot of opportunities for extracurriculars and his personal interests to help develop leadership/responsibility skills, and to expand his horizons as to what might be a career field of interest

 

 

Since you don't have a lot of time to devote to DS due to a large family, I would also start looking for what outsourcing and outside-of-home resources will best help your DS:

- therapist to walk DS through whatever therapies he might need to help overcome potential disability areas

- tutor, who can walk alongside him and help strengthen weak areas

- a local co-op class with a good teacher who has extra time to work with DS

- a local homeschooling friend or former homeschooler who has time/wisdom to come in and work with your DS

- OR, a mother's helper, friend, or retired person who can come into your home and work with your younger DC, to free up regular time several afternoons a week to allow YOU to work with DS

 

 

Finally, one last reason to consider DS tested/evaluated:  In order to receive special conditions or accommodations for SAT/ACT testing, and FREE tutoring and other helps in COLLEGE, you MUST start a "paper trail" now, while still in early high school years, of real, diagnosed, documented need.

 

 

BEST of luck as you plan ahead for high school, and in discovering what will best help your DS. Warmest regards, Lori D.

[vito]

I remember I was a kid. 12-13.

In school we had a boy who was seen by teachers and everybody as having real difficulties with remembering and understanding even simple straightforward material. 

It was accepted by teachers, students, and eventually parents and him himself that he was this way, and nobody bothered him much with homework, questions, etc.  He was a quiet outsider.  I remember I felt sorry specifically for that he was being already “assigned†a place in life.

 

One day a group of city kids played outside after school. We started naming soccer players that we liked, also their positions, jersey numbers, age, birth place etc.

I was astonished to hear the boy I knew from classes easily and happily named 30-40 players, tons of stats about each, and also he genuinely analysed their tactics, techniques, etc.

Something wrong here I thought, with perception. Find your way.

 

[Nan in Mass]

Lots of work on skills - TWTM basic academic skills and other skills, and less emphasis on content, and the rest of the time working on learning in the student's favourite non-academic manner.

 

Nan

[OneStepAtATime]

I agree with PP, if you haven't had testing done, you very well might want to do so.  Private evaluators may be more thorough but sometimes schools do an o.k. job, too.  Neuro-psychologists and possibly an evaluation through a CALT specialist could help.  You can get a run down not just of any weaknesses your child is trying to work through, but strengths that might be hidden because of the weaknesses.  Having a more complete picture means you can target specific weak areas (like poor working memory or executive function issues) while also tapping into those potential hidden strengths.  I was amazed at how much I didn't know, with regards to both strengths and weaknesses, about my children until I had a thorough evaluation.  It really put us on a better path to learning.

 

You might also seek an eye exam through a Developmental Optometrist (seek a recommendation through the COVD website linked below, but look at reviews; not all Developmental Optometrists are created equal; and don't ask your ophthalmologist if you need to go to a Developmental Optometrist.  The two disciplines do not always get along and usually think the other side are composed of arrogant quacks so you probably will not get an informed, unbiased answer).  My son has better than 20/15 vision.  We really did not think he had ANY vision issues.  But after reading some of the things parents were going through on the Learning Challenges board (which you may want to post on) I had my DS screened with a Developmental Optometrist and found he has heterophoria.  His left eye tracks upward ever so slightly, which makes certain tasks difficult for him.  He is not consciously aware of the difference between his two eyes and it was not noticeable to a layman.  Now we know and are working on ways to help with that.  There are many unusual vision issues that don't show up in a standard vision screening.  

 

http://www.covd.org/

 

There are several books I recommend you read:

As mentioned upthread ":Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner" by Kathy Kuhl is a good one (link above)

 

"How to Homeschool Your Learning Abled KId" by Sandra Cook (who also posts at TWTM)

http://www.amazon.com/How-To-Homeschool-Your-Learning-Abled-ebook/dp/B00GG0HX44

 

"The Mislabeled Child" and "The Dyslexic Advantage" by Brock and Fernette Eide.  The first book might really help you determine if you wish to pursue evaluations and which ones, but also better paths for homeschooling.  For the second, even if your child is not dyslexic, the second book is great for better understanding various mind strengths and is based on current scientific research on brain processing and development.  It might help you understand your child better and see some untapped gifts that you weren't aware were there.

 

http://www.amazon.com/MISLABELED-CHILD-THE-UNDERSTANDING-LEARNING/dp/B0016IYQV4

 

http://www.amazon.com/Dyslexic-Advantage-Unlocking-Hidden-Potential/dp/0452297923/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391176884&sr=1-1&keywords=the+dyslexic+advantage

 

Best wishes!

[Kendall]

Thank you so much for all of the suggestions.  I have started reading the Mislabeled Child and am going to learn about testing options.  My parents live in town and are retired and are pro homeschooling.  I may ask them for some help.  I just don't school in a way that is easy for someone else to help with so that is going to take some thought. 

 

Nan, I am very interested in more details about focusing on skills.  I am going to look at your previous posts because I think you may have explained this before.  I did this to a degree with my 2nd child, but in science and math I always felt I should cover content and he was able to.  Do you have thoughts on that?  Maybe at least the 9th grade year with this child (Conceptual Physics) I could still focus on skills and not worry about covering the whole book, but what about Biology and Chemistry?  That is over a year away so I don't need to decide on that yet, I just feel this "pressure" to give a credit worthy course.  Math I am confident that I can deal with.

 

What about Latin?  I kind of want to keep inching along and work on study/learning/memorizing skills and give her a Latin I credit at the end of next year.  She does like doing it okay.  I just know I can't get the quantity per year out of her that I could the others.  

 

Thanks again for the input.  

[BlsdMama]

Your post speaks to me. I wish I had some concrete help to offer. Ask me again in ten years. ;) We recently had our honest DS tested. We found someone really good because what was the purpose of paying for inaccurate results? It would be if no use to us. We went through the school first and they essentially tested him and came up with a very detailed result that told us he was "slow", with simply having a below average I.Q. around mid to low 80s.

 

We were recommended to see another doctor who was recommended to us by a Dyslexia assessor, an educational psychologist who specializes in dyslexia and processing issues. (We specifically wanted someone very aware of dyslexia because it's hereditary and we knew we had it in the family and we needed someone who could sort out dyslexia from everything else.)

 

But, some things seemed not to fit. We were shocked to find out he had a perfectly normal IQ but severely impaired working memory. So we have a normal child, profoundly dyslexic, who has a tiny working memory. It's a game changer. It explains a lot of frustration. But it also opens some doors. We know he is a strong auditory processor and that he retains audio material better while working with his hands.

 

I doubt Tim will go to college. He lives, lives building and working with his hands. So things like more time on the SAT are not going to be relevant to him. I'm not concerned with questions like: Does he need Chemistry to graduate? And why?

 

At the end of the day, I'm praying with more confidence and experience under my belt, I'll be able to make a high school plan for him that will cover the basics, mostly through audio books do he'll retain something, but mostly focus on opportunities for working alongside and learning skilled trades. He's a great kid. I think I'd do him a great injustice by trying to force a standard education into him, that he won't retain, fir the purpose of comforting myself with the mantra that at least I checked that box.... My long term goal is to raise healthy, functional, while humans, who can cope and succeeded in life, though my definition of success varies from each child to each child. Fir one child this means giving him the means to advance as far and furiously through rigorous math as possible and finding options when my teaching is no longer sufficient. :D. For another that's hopefully teaching basic math... Over and over and over with hopes that I can get enough moved into short term memory aDVD then into long term memory so that they can really do daily life without failure. And BOTH are successes.

[Nan in Mass]

Thank you so much for all of the suggestions.  I have started reading the Mislabeled Child and am going to learn about testing options.  My parents live in town and are retired and are pro homeschooling.  I may ask them for some help.  I just don't school in a way that is easy for someone else to help with so that is going to take some thought. 

 

Nan, I am very interested in more details about focusing on skills.  I am going to look at your previous posts because I think you may have explained this before.  I did this to a degree with my 2nd child, but in science and math I always felt I should cover content and he was able to.  Do you have thoughts on that?  Maybe at least the 9th grade year with this child (Conceptual Physics) I could still focus on skills and not worry about covering the whole book, but what about Biology and Chemistry?  That is over a year away so I don't need to decide on that yet, I just feel this "pressure" to give a credit worthy course.  Math I am confident that I can deal with.

 

What about Latin?  I kind of want to keep inching along and work on study/learning/memorizing skills and give her a Latin I credit at the end of next year.  She does like doing it okay.  I just know I can't get the quantity per year out of her that I could the others.  

 

Thanks again for the input.  

 

My parents live nearby and helped.  I would definately pursue this route.  My mother offered an outside opinion on papers, discussed religion, and taught them to cook, and my father (a retired electronics engineer) did something we called shop when speaking to outsiders and helping grampa when speaking to the children.  What actually happened was that my father had them (one at a time) for 4 or 5 hours one afternoon a week and quite often for another few hours on the weekend.  (And they crewed for him sailing in the summer for weeks at a time.)  They followed him around and helped him.  Sometimes they were shoveling or digging holes or lugging and carrying, but my father put a lot of thought into how to turn his grandsons into practical, able young men.  He taught them drafting and made them design things on paper before they built them.  They took appliances apart and repaired them.  They built things in his wood shop.  They fixed the dock and the house.  They repaired boats and outboard motors and learned to use them.  As they did all that, he made them problem solve and apply their math and science.  As they drove around in the car doing errands, he would make them speculate on what that funny box on the telephone pole was for or why someone had built that building extension where they did.  He made them think.  He was the one who told me that Saxon math was NOT working for my middle son (the one who is wired differently), despite the 85% or 90% average on the problem sets.  We switched to Singapore, backing way up.  He was the one who told me that Singapore was indeed working despite the 50% average on the problem sets. LOL.  If you ask my children about homeschooling, the first thing they usually mention is Grampa.  If you ask them what they did that taught them the most, they say helping Grampa.  One summer on the boat, my youngest panicked about taking physics at the community college without having had any high school physics  and asked Grampa to review physics with him.  We were on small sailboats.  No textbooks.  No internet access.  Nothing but Grampa's memory.  Over endless games of dominoes, he taught youngest quite a lot of basic conceptual physics.  He broke it into two halves - electrical and mechanical.  He taught mechanical by going over in great detail how a bicycle works and he taught electrical by going over how a telephone works.  He made youngest dope out a lot of it himself.

 

I also relied on gymnastics to teach some academic lessons in a physical way - hard work, practice, persistance, breaking down a large task into smaller tasks and learning each small one before putting it all together, etc.

 

Something we did that was important was to have a start and stop time to our "school" hours, when we were at home.  That way, we knew when school was over.  Later, they had homework that they were responsible for doing on their own outside those hours, usually math and Latin and paper writing, sometimes reading.

 

Somewhere on the board is a post I wrote about what my children had learned from doing Latin, other than Latin.  It was a rather long skills list.  I would definately keep on doing the Latin as long as you can.

 

We're sieve-brained so I had a choice between spending all our time trying to maintain the content we had so laboriously memorized or learning new content or learning skills, which once learned did not evaporate at quite such an astonishing rate.  I opted to focus on skills.  If you can't find what you want by reading old posts, let me know and I will try to explain what we did.

 

And just in case you want something else to aim at besides the trades...  (Not saying there is anything wrong with them.  Oldest did plumbing for awhile and learned a TON about problem solving and design.)  Have you seen the community college placement exams?  They test math, reading, and writing.  If you test high enough, you are able to sign up for classes that will give you college credit.  If you don't, you have to take the non-credit remedial classes until you can pass.  Rather than trying to prep for the SAT, you might use that test as a goal.  You can take it multiple times, although they may make you wait a bit before you take it again.  If your son likes to build things and wants a more white-collar job (something that isn't quite so hard on his back), he might some day want to be a technician for engineers.  If he works for a small company, he will get to make test equipment and prototype parts.  He is more likely to be hired to do this if he has a 2-year degree.

 

Nan

[Kendall]

Nan,

 

I would love to have reasons for continuing Latin.  I've just assumed it helped in lots of ways, but I don't know completely that it did or how it did.  I am finding it hard to get to with my current 4th and 6th graders but they want to do it.  My 8th grader is getting to it, as I said, slowly but regularly.

 

Are these the posts of yours that explain the benefits of Latin as you see them?   Anything you want to add?

 

"We tried Latin Primer, with the videos, which the children loved. They didn't remember any of the words and there was no review built in, so it was a flop. I realized we needed a reading based program and we switched to Salvete! followed by Ecce Romani, which worked well. It attacksLatin whole to parts AND parts to whole, so it worked for us. Sort of. If you look at the amount of time we put in compared to how well we readLatin, you would probably say it didn't work well at all, but Latin turned out to be a very important part of learning to write for my children. It gave us a common vocabulary to use when fixing punctuation errors and disentangling too-complicated sentences. It made them write volume without having to worry about what to write. It improved their guesses about long words. It made the past more real to them (nothing like reading Roman graffiti and discovering it sounds just like modern graffiti)."

 

"For us, Latin was an efficient way to teach grammar and spelling and how a language works."

 

 

[Elisabet1]

If she doesn't understand what she has read, start using audio books ASAP. My daughter had a lot of trouble. Turns out, reading is not visual, it is auditory. I did tons of research on it back then. I got her tons and tons of audiobooks. And I had her read books that she just liked, but they could be way below her age level, it was fine. I was trying to build her "reading fluency." On the audionbooks, we started with SOTW and then moved on to tons others. The library has a bunch, but I have also found some at home school conventions and half priced books. Now, all these years later, my daughter went from being in special education in the public school, to being an advanced reader. Yay!

[OneStepAtATime]

By the way, for anyone interested that isn't aware of this, Landry Academy has some new practical application "trade" type 2 day intensives and summer camps.  Things like masonry, car repair and maintenance, etc.  Can be just something to help with daily life or be turned into a career skill.

 

I am actually looking at similar issues for my DD for 9th (not next year but the year after) and am trying to get things in place now.  Have you looked at technologies and software that are supposed to make life a lot easier for struggling learners?  You are probably aware of most of these, but I thought I would list them just in case.  I am sure there are others, too.  We have looked at the following, but are just now in the process of perhaps getting and implementing them: 

 

1.        Kidspiration/Inspiration – software to help with organizing thoughts graphically to make it easier visually to improve writing.  Great for visual spatial learners.

 

2.       Ginger - http://www.gingersoftware.com/  This software is supposed to pair pretty well with Dragon Naturally Speaking because it takes written output and tries to correct the grammar/spelling/punctuation. 

 

 

3.       MathType and Microsoft Mathematics – 1^st you pay for, 2^nd option is supposed to be free.  It is a way to type math problems through a computer interface so you don’t have to write out all the symbols and characters and numbers, etc.  Great for dysgraphic students.

 

4.       Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) has several highly respected writing programs.  It was created by a parent of a dyslexic child, as I understand it.  The main program is fairly costly ($300?) but it teaches how to write papers and organize thoughts in a very systematic way.  It comes with DVDs for the student to watch and DVD’s for the parent/facilitator to watch.  The student is taught using the student DVDs but the parent learns how to implement and facilitate the lessons through the parent DVDs.   After the main IEW program is completed, they have many options for continued writing instruction that incorporate how to be more creative and free flowing.  You just need the main program first, usually, especially if you have any learning differences to deal with.  We intend to use this program starting in the Fall, after we finish Level 5 of the Barton Reading and Spelling program we are using very effectively for remediation of the dyslexia related reading, spelling and grammar issues.  The creator of Barton highly recommends this program so we are going to give it a whirl.

 

5.  Dragon Naturally Speaking - As you speak it types out what you are saying into the computer (very simplified description but I don't have much time)

 

Anyway, best wishes.  I hope you find a good path.

[Nan in Mass]

No, that wasn't it.  I think it might have been on the old board.  It's been awhile now, so it is hard for me to reproduce the list.  It had to do with learning to write quickly and easily (lots of writing involved), learning to copy carefully, learning to listen carefully (we listened to the stories while reading them), learning to read carefully (have to watch those endings), and learning how to memorize and review, as well as learning grammar (we did very little English grammar) and spelling (ditto because they didn't retain any of the English programs) and how languages work and historical perspective.  It wasn't quite like anything else we did.  It was much schoolier and as such, made them much more able to meet high school output expectations.

 

The first few months of high school were pretty miserable because my expectations took a step up and it took awhile for us all to adjust to that.  I don't regret that at all.  If I were a really good teacher, I might have been able to make a smoother, more gradual transition, but at least I MADE the transition.

 

Another useful concept is input and output.  With my son, the input could be high in level but not be massive in amount, while the output (quantity and level both) had to be lower.  Yours might be the other way round or something.  In my case, this meant that I had to do a lot of modifying to avoid selling my son short.  I had to use materials where the input was right and modify the assignments, rather than use materials whose assignments were at the right level.  When I did the latter, my son didn't learn anything he didn't already know and it was a waste of time.  Modifying worked better.

 

Did you find my post about the link between study skills and TWTM basic skills?

 

Nan

 

 

[vito]

Nan in Mass said (Posted 20 March 2011 - 09:34 AM):

A recent thread made me realize that if I could do one thing over again homeschooling (other than sending my oldest to community college instead of public high school) it would be to do more of TWTM language arts skills - copywork, dictation, narration, outlining, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, memory work, and logic. I didn't know why these were important (guess I didn't read TWTM carefully enough - sigh) so I tended to skip the ones that were hard for us, when in fact, those were the very ones we needed to work more on. I thought I'd just post this as a separate thread in case it helps even one person from making the same mistake I made.

Caution: This might not have been true if I had had a child with strong learning style differences or slownesses, but mine were just engineering-bright/language-arts-dim or wired just a bit differently, not drastically different. Aquiring academic skills so they can learn something by academic means is more difficult than for most children, but not an unreasonable goal. TWTM is the key to that for us. It specifically teaches the skills that the more academically gifted children are just naturally good at. And that means that we needed to work on the ones that my children are not good at. I wish I had known this earlier.

You may need to back way, way up to work on these. Follow the progression laid out in TWTM, and work through the progression. Don't just give up on the skill because your child is so far behind. And if your child is good at a skill, good enough that you decide you don't need to practise it, it is really important to keep checking every year and make sure that your child can still do that skill at the new, higher level. That is the mistake I made with one of mine with narration.

The whys of doing TWTM skills even though they are hard, boring, and miserable:

I think the key to being able to write well is to read tons of well-written material (like great books), to have the physical part down so you don't have to think about it (handwriting and typing), to have something to write about (good knowledge base and good research skills), to have a system of taking the mishmash of thought and putting them together in an organized way (find a method of putting them down in an unorganized way, organize them into a linear structure (outlining), and then rewrite - word processor is nice for this). You need to work on narration and logic for organization, vocabulary and grammar for style. Copywork and dictation deal with the mechanics of spelling and punctuation in a whole-to-parts way and spelling books and grammar books deal with it in a parts-to-whole way. You need to do the narration and the dicatation in order to put the pieces together and apply them.
I think the key to being able to read well (once the phonics part is out of the way) is grammar (so you can understand non-standard word order - think Shakespeare and poetry) and vocabulary. That is the parts-to-whole part. And then I think you need to do tons of reading and narrating and discussing. That is the whole-to-parts, applying what you learned, part.
I think the key to being able to learn the content subjects is study skills, and those depend on dictation (think note-taking), outlining (picking out the main points from the details), narration (summarizing), being able to read well at a variety of speeds from skimming to sentence-by-sentence reinterpreting, and being able to memorize (memory work).
I think the key to being able to teach yourself things as an adult or the key to being able to survive college is reading well, writing well, test taking skills, some sort of knowledge base, good study skills, and good organizational skills - keeping an assignment book, keeping track of one's materials, efficiency (resisiting the temptation of the internet, games, cell phones, and whatever else one does for escape and socializing), prioritizing (skimp on this because that is more important), and dividing large projects into little ones. One also needs to understand the system, how to pay attention to what this particular prof wants, and how to get help if you don't understand something. That last is more important and harder than one might think so I recommend finding opportunities to practise approaching strangers and asking for help. Truly - this is one of those things that seem obvious and easy to grownups but turns out to be a practically insurmountable obsticle to young adults, one that causes them to flunk courses. Sigh.

The advantage of this system is that if you get these academic skills down, high school content subjects are hard work but straight forward. For any subject, you pick a spine (doesn't have to be a textbook - it can be any sort of overview), study it (read, outline, summarize it), figure out what skills are involved and learn them (laboratory skills if it is a science), figure out which bits need to be memorized and memorize them, and then pick areas that are particularly interesting to you and investigate them further by doing research - reading and writing about them about them, and doing experiments. This is the pattern that adults follow when they learn anything using an academic way.

It is scary to concentrate so much on skills at the expense of content when you are homeschooling. What worked for us when the children were small was to do skills Mon-Thurs (along with reading aloud) and history and science on Friday (along with math and foreign languages, skills+content subjects that we couldn't skip or we forgot everything, and piano). It is important to apply the skills to the content areas, once you can do them a little, in order to improve and speed up, and in order to make the skills truly useful rather than just separate skills.

I hope this helps someone,

-Nan

(My credentials GRIN: two sons in college, one 16yo still homeschooling at home and taking community college classes for two and a half more years before going (hopefully) off to 4-year college)

PS - I did do some of these WTM skills. I just can see now, as I have two older children struggling their way through college, that they would have an easier time if their study skills were better, so I am trying to teach the youngest one better study skills and finding that those study skills depend on being able to narrate, outline, take dictation, etc.. Sigh.

PPS - I am editing this to add that a lot of the credit for figuring this out should go to Colleen in NS. If you do a search for posts by her with the word "outline" in them, you should be able to find some more information.

PPPS - Now that I see how many people have read this thread, I am having nightmares thinking that I have doomed some children to long boring days of drill. TWTM has lots of good ideas for making things less dry. TWTM says that what content you do should be allowed to go down bunny trails following your children's interests. TWTM recommends heavily illustrated spines, ones that my family, at least, found interesting even when we thought we weren't interested in the material. All the reading-to-oneself is a pleasant chore once one has learned to escape into a book, and TWTM has lots of reading time built into it, both reading aloud and reading silently and listening to audio books. Reading is still one of those foundation skills. Those fairy tales and folk tales and myths lighten the load. The grammar and logic stage science recs are hands-on and active. Your day should have lots of nice parts, too. TWTM says the skills should be attacked in a "nibbled to death by ducks" manner, a little bit consistently over time. If you do something like Kalmia suggested and establish some sort of routine for working on the skills, then you can just plug through your routine and everyone will know that it isn't forever until a nicer part of the day comes, and nobody has to think about it except when they are actually doing it. School is hard work, but it doesn't have all have to be hour upon hour of unpleasant drudgery at one thing. Think nibble nibble nibble, once the initial explanation is gone through. Cut the task down until it is taking too long. Yllek says not more, but more consistently. That is a good thing to keep in mind. And Lisa (swimmermom) says to emphasize working hard, not being good at something. That is a good thing to keep in mind, too. : )

 

 

[Nan in Mass]

Thank you, Vito. : )