Feeling Stale, Need to Shake Things Up

[Haiku]

My ds is 11 and is going into 6th grade. (In reality he is probably 13, but he was adopted internationally and has a court-assigned birthdate.) He is academically behind in all subjects. He was recently diagnosed dyslexic and is now in tutoring twice a week. He's making progress with the tutor and is reading better, but he still doesn't like to read (he listens to audiobooks like a fiend, though). His handwriting is bad (although improving), his math skills are weak, and his written work sounds like a 3rd-grader wrote it (although he can narrate create stories well). He has auditory processing issues and speech issues and attends therapy for this.

 

The WTM style of homeschooling didn't work for him at all. It really played to all his weaknesses, and everything was so frustrating for him that we made little forward progress. I have switched to an eclectic variety of resources for him: spelling for dyslexic kids, writing for struggling writers, TT for math, etc.

 

He really doesn't enjoy school at all. He is not an academically inclined kid (my dd12 is), and his philosophy is just to get it done. He doesn't take pride in his work or put in any extra effort. It's just wham-bam-canIbedone.

 

I don't mind that so much. I know that not all kids are academically inclined, and I am fine with that. I just feel like things are stale. Everything we do is a struggle, and he gets tired of struggling all the time. There's not a lot of joy in our work together. It's just a slog. I have incorporated more hands-on stuff for science and history, so that's been going better for him, but still ... it's just not fun the way it is with my dd.

 

I find myself looking at boxed and all-in-one curricula just for the sake of having a more defined schedule and scope, but there really is no one-size curriculum that would fit him. 

 

I'm just frustrated, and I'm not looking forward to starting the new school year. I'm tired of the monotony of still working to master basic skills with him.

 

Does anyone have a pep talk, resources, or methods/strategies that might make me feel better?

 

TIA.

[Hunter]

You said he listens to audiobooks like a fiend. Can you start planning there?

 

Have you ever looked at the Kindle Fire Immersion Reading? The device reads the book to the student while highlighting the text. The voice is a professional recording, not a computer reading the text.

 

I'm trying to use the AO, TWTM, and Sonlight reading lists to find as many whispersync sets to use with some students as possible. I'm finding the device very hard on my eyes, though, and don't know why, so I save it for the most challenging books and use just audio, or just an eBook on the Paperwhite, or a real book to break up the Kindle Fire.

 

I use the AO and TWTM lists WAY below grade level.

 

Do you have him reread and relisten to books? I'm finding that useful if a students likes to do that, and some do.

 

Even my adult students like to color while listening. Dover coloring books are quite instructional. A picture does tell 1000 words.

[idnib]

I don't have much advice but I did notice he likes audiobooks and he likes narrating stories. Can he listen to books and then re-tell stories to you while you write the narrations down? Or can he learn to type his summaries with help? And maybe illustrate them? Bookmaking?

 

:grouphug:

[Nan in Mass]

Would he like to learn a musical instrument?  Maybe he'd think drumming was fun, or guitar?

 

Would he like to learn some songs?  Real ones, not to-help-you-memorize-something songs?

 

Would he like memory work?  If he memorizes oral things easily, then he might find it fun to recite poetry or something.  The memorizing part isn't much fun but the reciting once you know it part sometimes is.

 

How about story telling?  That is a useful skill.  Mine spent a year reading a short folk tale (some were only a paragraph or two), learning it, and then retold it to me in the car.  For that year, it was the most fun part of the day. 

 

Would he like to learn to draw?  A page of Draw Squad takes ten or fifteen minutes and wouldn't add much to the day.  Being able to draw is very useful.

 

Would he like to use the internet to learn a new language, something like Duolingo?  Or learn orally somehow?

 

Is he interested in natural history?  He could get the Peterson bird song tutorial CD and learn to identify birds via their song, or learn to use nature guides and start learning about trees, or get the Stokes guides and learn about mammals or insects or whatever.

 

Does he like to make things?  Could you add origami or woodworking or computer programming to his schedule?

 

Would he like to learn chess?  Or work on crossword puzzles or sudoku puzzles?  You could add those and consider them logic.

 

For my less-than-academic-minded children, the trick to lightening the load was to add to the daily schedule one or two SHORT things that built useful skills and weren't a terrible struggle and were somewhat fun.  Some years, we did one of those first to get us started on the day, and some years, we started with the hardest thing, then did the next hardest, then did something funnish, then did the rest of the hard things, then finished up with another funnish thing (usually great books, which we read aloud).  We had a firm starting time and a firm stopping time, after which, we knew that school was over.  Later, when they were older, I added "homework" that they did in the evening on their own (their math and Latin excerisizes, usually).

 

Not sure any of that is helpful.

 

Nan

 

[Harriet Vane]

:grouphug:

[momee]

My student who isn't overly enthusiastic about learning has loved Memoria Press.  Clear expectations, daily consistent lessons with no unexpected crazy projects, manageable workload, fairly interesting (it is school after all) subject material and the added bonus of two online classes to break up the weekly monotony.  I love it because I know I am covering the necessities and schoolwork is a set time of our day, every day.  Open, go, done.

 

I realized after my first student has now graduated (poor, poor guinea pig) this is not a kid who will stick it out with mom's projects of mummifying a chicken much longer than week 2 or 3 because that actually makes the school day longer than it needs to be.  While that is fun for a time or two, keeping up that frantic hs pace was killing her and me!

 

She's done fantastically with MP and I cannot sing its praises enough.  For us, boxed curriculum with an unlimited number of interesting library books has been the ticket. She is free to add in any rabbit trails she likes.  This has actually opened tons of doors for her...doors I would never! have planned to even have on the horizon.

 

Next year she will be receiving her very own Kindle which will add a techie element that I hope won't distract too much, but just enough to make the written word jump off the page even more than it has for her this year.

 

Blessings to you because it is HARD to teach kids sometimes.  

[Nan in Mass]

I had another thought, this one possibly more useful.  For a number of years, we did ordinary school stuff  Mon. through Thurs., then on Friday, we did history and science.  We did math (and some years Latin) five days a week, usually first thing.  Math is always and forever in my family.  Nobody minded it too much.  Anyway, doing this kept the subject balance tipped the way I wanted it tipped - emphasis on skills, not on content.  We tended to run a bit later on Fridays, but nobody really minded because science usually had a hands-on piece and I arranged it so that was the bit that stuck out past our regular stopping time (2pm).  This meant the more sloggy part of school was only four days, then they had three more interesting days (Friday and the weekend).

 

I found that a lot of what I was fighting wasn't understanding or being able to do things in the first place, but remembering how to do things.  The weekly schedule, the daily schedule, even the order in which we did the subjects had a lot to do with whether or not we moved forward or just spun our wheels.  It turned out that for my children, a 24 hour gap from lesson to lesson in math and foreign languages was just too much.  They (and I, actually) had to touch those subjects twice a day.  It was a nuisance, but it was the easiest way to make progress in those subjects.  At least it had the advantage of shortening the original session.  So, for example, in the morning, we would correct the night before's excersize, I would read them the math lesson, writing out the example problems while talking aloud to myself (to model the sort of dialogue that I wanted them to produce in their heads as they solved problems), and watch them solve the first few problems in the excersize to make sure they understood.  Then at night, they would do the rest of the excersize.  They also did an excersize over the weekend.  Another thing I had to do for us to make forward progress was NOT divide the day into very tiny time slots.  It took too long for them to shift gears mentally.  We had to do each thing for a goodish bit of time.  There were exceptions, like Draw Squad, but generally, if we weren't making progress, it was because we had a schedule that didn't work.

 

It might be that the history and science on Friday schedule makes too big a break in things like math and grammar.  Maybe doing history and science (and possibly math) on Wed. might give you just enough of a gap to make the rest of the week not so bad, but not create any three-day breaks in things like grammar?

 

Nan

[PeterPan]

:grouphug:  You're doing a good work trying so hard to help him!

 

If there's a big gap between what he can narrate orally and what he's getting on paper, then I'd teach him to type and pronto.  Not everyone needs this, but my dd really benefited from switching over to Dvorak (an alternate keyboard layout).  If you've tried typing and it didn't click, look into it.

 

My dd's writing didn't click until more like 13, so he may not be ready or might be just on the cusp of it.  The change was SO radical (when it finally happened!) that I couldn't believe it.  So I guess don't believe that what you've seen in the past is indicative of who he is inside.  His good narrations are an awesome sign that things are inside waiting for the time to come out.  I'd believe in that and nurture that.  It may come even later, say 16+.

 

Have you thought about playing games daily as part of your school time?  He's a great age for Ticket to Ride.  It would be good for his speech (explain everything as you play), working memory (holding the routes in your head), logic, etc.  There are cooperative games like Forbidden Desert and Forbidden Island if competitive games are a problem.  I went through a stage where I made a serious effort to play a game EVERY SINGLE DAY with my dd.  

 

Btw, the other thing we were doing right before dd's writing took off was metronome work.  Heathermomster has posted some instructions over on LC.  We did those and after she was comfortable with the physical movements we added in digit spans.  That was when her writing became more comfortable.  I say writing, but it was getting thoughts out via typing.  Her writing is hen scratch these days.  We went back and made her up her own little script that looks sort of like elven writing so the most important things (like her signature) she can slow down and be proud of.  She types almost anything else unless the teacher requires it to be handwritten.  

 

I paid her dearly to get her to type.  She thought I was a witch (sorry to all witches) for making her switch from QWERTY, so it was this overly dramatic bad moment in our lives where I sort of made us hit the wall and said do it my way anyway.  Not pretty, but now she's a functional typist, around 40-50 wpm, which means she can get her thoughts on paper.  To get it on paper, they need working memory, and that's what the digit spans do.  When you're doing the digit spans with the metronome work, you're improving their ability to do motor control AND use their working memory AND tolerate distraction.  So it's this meaty, powerful, all in one activity that simulates what they need to be able to do to write.  (hold their thoughts, get it out, compete with other inner or external noises)

 

That's neat that he enjoys audiobooks so much.  If you give him science books with audios, does it change what he engages with?  Do you have time to read to him more?  To disconnect the writing expectations and the content and just let him enjoy LEARNING?  You could separate them out.

 

That's awesome that he's getting tutoring.  Will you be able to carry it over at home or bump it up?  If you could continue the work at home and pick up the pace, it might ruin this coming year but then leave you in a great position the following year.  Just a thought.  

 

It would be pretty hard to enjoy learning if everything you do is connected to WTM skills and you have learning issues, ugh.  I've been pondering that with my own ds, and I keep telling myself REMOVE BARRIERS, remove barriers to the love of learning.  We can do his therapy things separately.  I don't have to tie therapy and interventions to his school work.  Therapy and interventions are HARD and tiring.  I don't need to connect his mental pleasure and enjoyment of beauty, life, narratives, etc. to that and kill them for him.

 

Btw, does he ever do anything really different like use technology to make stuff?  What is he into?  Someone was encouraging me to make books with my ds using the iPad.  You'd start with images and then mom or the dc adds a little bit of text in the amount they're comfortable with.  Gives him something to talk about and be proud about.  You can do a lot of science that way (build the experiment, take a picture, put it in your ibook).  What does he seem to connect with or enjoy or like doing?  Is there any of that you could nurture and then just broaden a bit?  Like I was thinking this morning I'd be really smart to go look up classical art with weapons in it since ds is so into weapons.   :lol: His thing, just slightly broadened.