How to encourage careful, accurate work?

[Emba]

I need to encourage DD to be more accurate and read through things carefully, follow directions (all of them!) etc.

 

This is a longstanding problem, not something that has suddenly cropped up.  Occurs in all subjects.  Often, if I stand right by her and have her do a couple of problems, she knows how to do them correctly, when I'm not there, she just goes her merry way making silly mistakes left and right.  Part of it is just wanting to be done fast as possible, I think.  I often make her go back and correct mistakes, but it doesn't seem to help her to go more carefully the next time.

 

So give me whatever you've done that worked for you.  I'm at my wit's end.

[Arcadia]

I make my kids find their own mistake if I spot any. I am not their mistake checker :)

 

I find if I grade ticks and crosses, my kids have no incentive to check since mom or dad would be grading.

 

My kids also have some outside classes that give grades. They get "bad" grades if they are careless or did not write all the relevant working down. "Bad" grades means my hubby would give them summer work to make up for it :lol: My hubby believes that the more you practice the less careless you get.

[mlktwins]

Interesting about letting them find their own mistakes! May have to think about that.

 

I have one that I now make highlight the important part (what is actually required) of the directions before they start their work. Seems to be helping.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I make my kids find their own mistake if I spot any. I am not their mistake checker :)

 

I find if I grade ticks and crosses, my kids have no incentive to check since mom or dad would be grading.

 

My kids also have some outside classes that give grades. They get "bad" grades if they are careless or did not write all the relevant working down. "Bad" grades means my hubby would give them summer work to make up for it :lol: My hubby believes that the more you practice the less careless you get.

Can you give some examples?  Like for math, would you just say, "You missed two problems on this page, now find and fix."?  Or what, exactly?

 

For a written assignment, what would this look like?  I'm considering making tick marks per line for number of mistakes in that particular line of writing, not sure if this would help or frustrate though...  

[HomeAgain]

It's a lot of small things.  Like Arcadia said, make them find their own mistakes, but also repeating instructions.  For example, this was how our dictation exercise went yesterday.

 

Me: I'm going to give you two sentences, ready?  ...........I call my dog Jack.  I like the name of Jack.

 

Child: I call my dog Jack. I like the name of Jack.

 

He begins to write.  A few minutes later...

 

Child: All done!

 

Me: Great!  How many sentences do you have?

 

Child: 2....wait...okay.  Now 2. (after adding punctuation at the end of the first sentence.)

 

Me: What are your rules for capitalization in these sentences?

 

Child: Capitalize at the beginning of a sentence...got it..capitalize "I" because *I* am important :D..got it..capitalize names, because they're important, too...I don't know how to make a capital J.

 

Me: Okay, your chart is at the beginning of your tablet.  What is the difference between capital and lowercase J?

 

Child: Capital sits on the line with a hat, lowercase goes fishing in the water.

 

-----------------------------------------------

 

This is still a new skill, so more guidance.  Next year it would look like "make sure you have the right number of sentences." and "think about your capitalization rules."  And then still further down the road "go over your work before you hand it in.  I won't grade past 5 mistakes and you will need to redo."

[Emba]

I make my kids find their own mistake if I spot any. I am not their mistake checker :)

 

I find if I grade ticks and crosses, my kids have no incentive to check since mom or dad would be grading.

 

My kids also have some outside classes that give grades. They get "bad" grades if they are careless or did not write all the relevant working down. "Bad" grades means my hubby would give them summer work to make up for it :lol: My hubby believes that the more you practice the less careless you get.

 

I'm curious as to how this finding their own mistakes works out - I tell her there are mistakes, sometimes, and she goes back and changes things, sometimes pretty much at random, so then there are even more mistakes...  I mean, we can spend a long time with the correcting.

 

When I first started homeschooling, I checked papers but didn't give grades, because I wanted it to be lower stress.  But having no grades seemed to say to DD (who had just come out of public school) that it didn't matter how many she got wrong, so I've started putting a grade on the paper.

[HomeAgain]

Emba, have you thought of creating a rubric?  Even just a temporary one for that assignment, of things to look for before turning it in.

[Alice]

Not sure how old your dd is, which might change my response. 

 

My oldest (7th grade) is notorious for making frequent careless mistakes in math. He's very good in math but does things like copy the problem wrong, copy his own work wrong from line to line, forget to write a negative sign, etc. I do make him find his own mistakes. I will just circle the problems he got wrong and have him look at it and see if he can figure it out. If he can't figure it out then I'll work through it with him. 

 

With my younger kids I do the same thing, just circle what is wrong and have them look at it but then I'm quicker to help if they say they need it. 

 

Then incentive for my kids is that they are done quicker. They know that if they don't make the careless mistakes or they find them quickly and correct them that they are done. They don't want to spend a long time on work. 

 

For writing, I use the feature on the computer that lets me highlight and comment on mistakes. So I'll highlight what is wrong but I don't always say what to do. 

 

It might be that there is just a time period of adjustment for you dd to get back to the idea that doing the work correctly is important even if there is no "grade" at the end. I can see why she might feel like it doesn't really matter if she's used to ps and being graded. 

[Alice]

dp

 

Edited May 13, 2016 by Alice

[Emba]

This is still a new skill, so more guidance.  Next year it would look like "make sure you have the right number of sentences." and "think about your capitalization rules."  And then still further down the road "go over your work before you hand it in.  I won't grade past 5 mistakes and you will need to redo."

 

HomeAgain - I like this.  There are some things we've gone over so much that I think saying "I won't grade past X mistakes" would be a good idea.  Others, we've just really started concentrating on.

[Arcadia]

Can you give some examples? Like for math, would you just say, "You missed two problems on this page, now find and fix."? Or what, exactly?

 

For a written assignment, what would this look like?

For math. we were using SM so I started out telling my kids how many they missed on a page and then switch to just telling them there are mistakes. There aren't many problems on each page of SM so it wasn't hard to spot mistakes. After they went on to AoPS, I did tell them where they make a mistake initially before helping less and less on spotting mistakes. AoPS working is much longer than SM and so looking through more than 10 problems in a section of AoPS to spot their mistake is tiring. So for AoPS problems, I tell them which question they make a mistake on.

 

For science, I tell them if it is a spelling, computation or units error. Sometimes they miss out the units. Sometimes they wrote the wrong units because they think faster than they write.

 

For written assignment, I hand back the assignment for proofreading after the first error. If there are still errors after my kids proofread, I let them know if it is grammar (tenses and punctuation) or spelling. When they were in 2nd/3rd grade, we proofread together and we use the common proofreading marks for mistakes. We use something like this link in PDF http://jeriwb.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Proofreading-Symbols.pdf

 

My oldest is a natural speller but my youngest needed handholding for spelling errors. So I would ask my youngest to check the dictionary for the words he spelt wrongly and do not know how to correct.

 

Even now when assignments tend to be typed and there is grammar check and spell check, proofreading skills have remain useful not only for English but other languages. My kids write slower than they can think or read for any subject. Proofreading force them to slow down and really check.

[Arcadia]

I'm curious as to how this finding their own mistakes works out.

 

When I first started homeschooling, I checked papers but didn't give grades, because I wanted it to be lower stress. But having no grades seemed to say to DD (who had just come out of public school) that it didn't matter how many she got wrong, so I've started putting a grade on the paper.

I wrote out what I did in the reply above this one :) It is a gradual shift in responsibility.

 

As for grading, we just view it as this is the grade you get due to all the careless errors, and this is the grade you could have gotten without those errors. For example math problem set, with careless errors my kid might have 15/20 correct. After correcting the careless errors, he could have 19/20 correct with the one wrong being that he misinterpreted the question. So they end up with two grades per problem set. It helps them visualize how many marks they are losing to carelessness which is within their control. I explain to them that carelessness is like quality control errors in real life. Getting a lousy grade is less disastrous then quality control slips but it helps my kids understand why we come after them for being sloppy.

[Emba]

Thanks everyone for the answers.  DD is ten, if that helps anyone. :)

 

[wintermom]

I think doing work carefully and accurately is something everyone deals with, no matter what age and education level they are at. Children and adults all make errors or have things that could be improved in their writing, spelling, grammar, content, math, etc. Instead of trying to seek perfection, I'd look for improving understanding and confidence, and building stronger foundations so that future work can be more accurate and complete.

 

For myself, getting my work proofread by collegues is very helpful, and the more specific the feedback the more helpful it is. Have you even giving a paper to someone only to have them hand it back and say either, "It's great! Wouldn't change a thing." or "There are mistakes all through this."  Both are pretty useless, and don't help you improve your paper.

 

Here are some things I personally like when I receive or give feedback:

 

- It is timely. The sooner after completing the task the better.

- It is specific and clearly shows what needs work.

- There is verbal clarification of the suggestions for correction, so that the person understands what was the error and how it needs to be improved.

- It is given in a neutral or positive manner. 

 

Edited May 14, 2016 by wintermom

[Targhee]

Keep directions to a minimum.

Have her read them aloud.

Praise accuracy and neatness.

 

Be patient. Some people by nature are quick start, ready fire aim! Of course she needs to learn to be neat and attentive but odds are this is her nature me not her being willfully disobedient or lazy.

[Emba]

Yes, I'm sure she's not being willfully disobedient.  It's totally her nature.  It just worries me because it's so bad, and this is a girl who wants to go back to public school in a year or so.  Standardized tests are in her not to distant future.  Plus, you know, doing things accurately is a good general life skill.