serendipitous journey Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 *** OLD THREAD! *** I resurrected it to update with what we ended up doing; please do add to it if you have ideas about implementing SOTW4! Original Post begins here: I am using SOTW4 with A, and he really struggles with the comprehension questions. We read the encyclopedia selections first for background, and I have begun reading the SOTW4 activity guide questions to him before we read from SOTW4, but that doesn't make much difference; and to help with the reading itself we did the last assignment as paired reading, alternating reading paragraphs aloud to each other, and while he seemed to understand as we read he did not retain the information for the activity guide questions. When he doesn't know the information, I have him try to find it in the text; if he just can't locate it, I have him read aloud the pertinent paragraph in its entirety and then answer. That ALWAYS works. Is it worth sticking with the questions? Is this "normal" -- as in, just fine from a development and learning perspective? In the past I've adopted a practice of breaking the reading up into very short chunks and having A. narrate them, then expanding the length of sections. Maybe this would be best? it's probably my default next step ... TIA for thoughts! ETA -- this child has always had trouble processing history. It just doesn't make much sense to him, he's a STEM-y kind of guy. This is improving with age and experience :) but the comprehension challenges are pretty much limited to the history domain, in other topics he does what I'd expect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fourisenough Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 Are you having him outline the chapter as/after he reads using the outline prompts in the AG? My DD10 can typically answer the comprehension questions IF she has outlined, but not otherwise. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted November 1, 2014 Author Share Posted November 1, 2014 Are you having him outline the chapter as/after he reads using the outline prompts in the AG? My DD10 can typically answer the comprehension questions IF she has outlined, but not otherwise. What a great idea! Yes, he outlines, but we do that after the comp. questions. I'll switch the order this week and see if that helps. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milknhoney Posted November 4, 2014 Share Posted November 4, 2014 Your son sounds exactly like mine. We did SOTW 4 last year. Same problems. In a fit of frustration with the comprehension questions, I realized that I myself could not answer the question either, and I had listened to the audio in the car several times. Furthermore, I realized I didn't care. It just wasn't important information to me (gasp!). What I ended up doing was sitting down with the table of contents and crossing out all the chapters of topics that I thought he could survive without knowing (as in, I've survived 39 years so far not knowing it myself :) ). I found that the remaining chapters were ones that he connected with much easier, and it wasn't such a huge problem. Also now that we had less content to cover, it was much less stressful learning what was left. As has been said, he did MUCH better filling in the outlines, so we concentrated on doing those. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoo Keeper Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 With more difficult readings, one of my boys does significantly better if he writes down a one sentence blurb right after reading *EACH* paragraph throughout the whole assignment. This is a very basic form of outlining; I just eliminate the added stress of making it a "formal" outline, which would turn the whole thing into a nightmare for him. Just one sentence about the "big thing" in each paragraph. With some books, it has been the only way to force his focus to where it needs to be. At first, I had to sit down with him, read the paragraph out loud to him, ask very leading questions and then drag the one word answers out of him, make him reform those words into a sentence and repeat it back to me, write it down properly on the whiteboard so he could copy it into his notebook, and then do it all over again for each and every paragraph. I was wiped out when it was done. :svengo: But I am slowly removing the training wheels, and he is getting better at this without me having to do so much of it for him. This is for my eleven year old--very smart guy, but he needs help in learning the discipline of focusing on your reading, even if it is boring and not something you like. Not saying that is your son's problem, OP, but it really *was* the issue for my guy. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted November 5, 2014 Author Share Posted November 5, 2014 Milknhoney, I have had the same thoughts! thanks for this perspective. Zoo Keeper, did you do this with SOTW(4) itself? There are so many paragraphs per section that I think my child would be miserable. I am beginning to think that having CM-style narrations after very short chunks of text may be the ticket... outlining first didn't solve the problems straightforwardly ... Also, I'm moving us to the History Odyssey order of chapters, so we get a narrative flow within a region. Its a big help for colonial Africa, for example! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldilocks Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 This is my second time through STOW 4, this time with my 3rd and 4th kids. We are skipping the questions all together and just doing a narration and drawing a picture. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted November 5, 2014 Author Share Posted November 5, 2014 This is my second time through STOW 4, this time with my 3rd and 4th kids. We are skipping the questions all together and just doing a narration and drawing a picture. This is encouraging! why did you decide to drop them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Tick Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 I hand out the outline pages before I read the section out loud. Sometimes they fill them in as we goo, sometimes not. Then after reading we do the comprehension questions and the outline at the same time. I do not shy away from editing our removing the questions if they seem unnecessary. My two main goals are familiarity with the subject and an introduction to outlining. In general, my kids are good with reading comprehension, so if some of the history flees in and right back out while we are reading, no big deal (to me). We also come back later to do a timeline, so that delayed Sunday helps me see what has stuck and what we've all forgotten. All this to say, I think your ds sounds normal, and I wouldn't pursue the comprehension questions to the point that enjoyment is list. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldilocks Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 This is encouraging! why did you decide to drop them? The questions are very detailed. So detailed, they could only answer a few. It was discouraging for all of us. Dropping them made history fun again. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted June 3, 2015 Author Share Posted June 3, 2015 Just thought I'd update this with what we ended up doing. I read the chapter sections ahead of time, divided it into subsections, and separated them with a pencil line across the page (I ended up with 4-8 chunks, usually). Then I looked over the Activity Guide questions and divided them according to my sections. My goal, which came from things I've learned from Charlotte-Mason style narrations, was to "back up" to sections of text that were short enough for A. to understand them and retain them during discussion, and also short enough that if he did not understand an essential element I would catch this quickly and help him out. This was my prep work. At History Time I first had him look over the encyclopedia section (from the AG -- we have a few of the encyclopedias, he could pick the one he wanted) assigned and we discussed it. Then I gave him the SOTW book and had him read just 1 marked subsection, narrate it to me, answer orally any questions he hadn't addressed in his narration; then lather, rinse, repeat. ;) This worked VERY well and had the happy side effect of boosting interest. After finishing 1 major section (half of a chapter -- that is one topic in SOTW4) he would do the mapwork. This was one day of modern history at our house. He did almost no ancillary reading for modern history, but he concurrently was working through the Beautiful Feet's California History Through Literature and had other literature assigned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aprilleigh Posted June 3, 2015 Share Posted June 3, 2015 I'd skip them, or write your own questions if you feel the provided questions are not working. As long as he can demonstrate to you that he understands what the chapter talked about, that's good enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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