Hitting a wall in your schooling. . .

[lapsetmom]

Do you ever feel like the energizer bunny repeatedly hitting a brick wall in your homeschooling? I feel like we are stuck in a rut. I am especially frustrated because my oldest daughter (8years) soaks up information like a sponge, but when it comes to any kind of critical or logical thinking skills, shuts down. In her math, for instance, she can memorize a process and do well, but when it comes to thinking logically, doing word problems, or mental math, she just begins guessing and repeatedly gets the wrong answers. And yet, I know she should be able to do these things! In reading she is beginning to get more comprehension problems wrong than normal, and it is making me feel like she is just shutting down and getting lazy. I see no joy in learning for her, and it is frustrating me! My other daughters are doing better, but I feel like I'm missing something, like we're not doing enough, but if I do more then they'll get even worse when it comes to accuracy and completeness in their work. Any thoughts?

[Peela]

Have you read about the developmental stages of children, especially as it relates to classical homeschooling? In TWTM it talks about kids up until the age of 10 or 12 being wonderful at memorising and absorbing, but not being able to think logically well until 10 or 12. Its called the grammar stage. The next stage is the Logic stage- its a generlisation but past generations understood it. Your daughter is perfectly normal, in fact, and your getting frustrated with her isn't going to help.

It is very different for the brain to be able to reason things out- as in many comprehension questions, or maths problems- to being able to absorb lots of information. The reasoning comes later, and you cant make it happen prematurely, although some kids are better at it younger than others. Both my kids were even later at being able to reason well than TWTM suggests. My 13yo son is only this year able to do maths problems well. Before that, it was a meltdown. Dd14 was able to do them all along but the higher reasoning skills are only now kicking in.

I think you find if you read TWTM you might feel relieved that your daughter is ok, and there are ltos of things you can do with her now that will help her later, and she will enjoy learning more if she is not feeling she should be able to things she simply cant do yet. Now is the time for reading interesting stuff, memorising poetry, learning the math facts and basic computations, being able to narrate back to you what she has read, learning to handwrite well, as well as dictation and written narration, learning grammar facts, decorating her work, interesting science experiments, walks in nature, lots of history and mapwork....not thinking logically. That will come in its own time. TWTM suggest logic puzzles to help that function, but not until 5th grade or so.

hth

[lapsetmom]

Thanks for the reminder. That's basically how'd I'd been teaching--focusing on memorization, but it seems that with math, most curriculum have thinking and word problems, etc. even in the elementary textbooks. That is including Singapore which many on this forum like. My daughter excels at her math facts, so is it okay to just leave math at the basics and forgo word problems, etc?

[Mandamom]

I wouldn't forgo the word problems but definitely be aware that you might have to go through them with her to help her get through them.

 

My 8 daughter is lousy with logic type things (she's been known to get lost in general conversations) and teaching her the key words of word problems has been extremely helpful (altogether usually means addition; lemft usually means subtraction, etc.)

[Peela]

Thanks for the reminder. That's basically how'd I'd been teaching--focusing on memorization, but it seems that with math, most curriculum have thinking and word problems, etc. even in the elementary textbooks. That is including Singapore which many on this forum like. My daughter excels at her math facts, so is it okay to just leave math at the basics and forgo word problems, etc?

 

I agree not to necessarily forego all word problems, but if she needs help, she needs help. Singapore is great, we used it for several years, but its not going to suit all children, and my older, a bright kid, still struggled with it at times. My younger....well, he needed me to help him, a lot, and we gave up at the end of lever 4.

Sometimes its not the child....its that the curriculum doesn't fit the child. Singapore is one of those really excellent programs that is not really excellent for all kids. I think you have to listen to the child, and where they are at, and meet them there, even if it means changing programs or going back a few levels. The child should be feeling some challenge but also a degree of daily success. If the child is always struggling, and is feeling bad about it, it will affect their confidence, which will further undermine their ability to think clearly. Singapore definitely brings in higher levels of logical thinking than many programs, at a young age. It suits some kids, but not all.

[Tullia]

is that after soaking up new information it's sometimes necessary to pause and sort things out before moving on. It's a lot like the way children grow physically during the pre-school years; fast spurts of growth followed by a time in which nothing (on the surface at least) seems to be happening. Allowing time to consolidate new information is crucial to success later on.

 

Also, don't let yourself get pulled too far into the "critical thinking" mantra. As the other posters mentioned, many (Dare I say most?) children don't take off in that area until the teen years. I think the focus on critical thinking skills is over-sold by folks who believe that it's possible to bypass the usual developmental process and jumpstart intellectual development. I agree, too, that taking another look at the relevant section of TWTM will give you the "permission" you need to allow your daughter to focus on doing what she's best equipped to learn at 8.

 

That's not to say that you can't introduce some basics. One example would be to model the "scientific method" by discussing (briefly for an 8 yo) how a botanist, chemist, etc. would go about asking small questions in order to answer a bigger one. This works best if you have a question from your child to use as a starting point. At the age of 8 children are well equipped to observe, and the ability to observe carefully will be useful later on when she is fully ready to start comparing different ideas.

 

Added thought: one important component of observation is looking at similarities and differences in a concrete way by discussing things flowers have in common but also how they differ. You can do this kind of activity in your backyard, on nature hikes or field trips to a botanical garden, zoo, or aquarium.

Edited April 9, 2009 by Martha in NM
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[lapsetmom]

Great thoughts! So in summary--

--make sure the curriculum suits the child with a good balance for challenge and success

--give breaks for assimilation

--model critical thinking skills rather than expect them so young

 

Thanks!

[Matryoshka]

That sounds exactly like one of my dds at that age. It frustrated me no end. On top of that, she's a perfectionist, so when she gets something wrong she'd cry and say she was dumb. (and if you just randomly guess at a problem, it's likely to be wrong). She'd memorized her facts, and she'd do fine as long as she could "intuit" a problem, but if she had to think through it... oh, the tears.

 

So I put her on a regimen of critical thinking books. Math Detective was the mathiest. It walks the child through a word problem and shows them where each step comes from. I also added a lot of non-math critical thinking books - Mind Benders, Venn Perplexors, Think-a-Minutes, Cranium Crackers, Science Detective.

 

Fast forward two years - math is still far from her favorite subject, but she says the word problems are now her favorite part of Singapore. Go figger. (Not that she's perfect - she'll still get stuck sometimes in Science Detective and Cranium Crackers, but oh, what an improvement!)