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Post by StrugglingAgain on Nov 14, 2004 10:21:22 GMT -5
Surely, I'm not the only one here who does this...and if I am, I want someone to give me a way to stop. There are some things my ds9 just plain will not do, or cannot do, or isn't going to do....like a book report. He reads fine and we still make him read aloud to us, so I know that he's reading it. He has so much trouble organizing his thoughts, much less having the discipline to sit down and put it on paper, that I end up writing the book report for him. He does sit with me (or his father) and we try to discuss the book with him and put it in some kind of sequence, but he'd never, ever get through it on his own. Today we did interactive stuff on the computer to do one a little differently and he's interested, but there's just no way he'd do it by himself. Is there hope with more maturity?
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mothercat
Member Emeritus
With a little luck and a lot of Gods help anything is possible!
Posts: 1,468
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Post by mothercat on Nov 14, 2004 13:33:55 GMT -5
We finally tried a timeline on paper of what my son is to write about and then he has a pointing place to look towards with each sentence. from beginning to end. Jare is 11 and has dysgraphia ( it is problems with putting thoughts to paper) It is in his 504 now that he is to be allowed to type all work that involves sentences. There is therapy for dysgraphia but no one around here offers it...the schools wont even test for it let alone provide OT.
My older son (14) had to show me what a timeline was as I didnt know. Just draw a line and use one or two
word phrases to remind him of things that happen between the beginning and end of the story he is writing about and then he has a reminder on paper that didnt take a lot of hassel to write out . It helps organize Jareds thoughts....just a suggestion but that is what we did. I know how you feel ..sometimes it would seem easier to just dictate a report but then they get dependant on that and you become a secretary. I have been sitting with my son two to four hours a night for homework time for 4 yrs now and we finally got a handle on it. sort of ! maybe. hehehe
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Post by MistyMorningPA on Nov 14, 2004 17:59:21 GMT -5
What grade is your son in, Struggling again? Just wondered because my daughter is in 4th & they usually put a fun spin on book reports. The teacher has had them do a poster-sized book with little summaries & pictures on it, a diarama book report & a cereal-box book report. All were fun projects that got the kids interested & yet still showed their knowledge of what they had read. My daughter HATES homework for the most part, yet she gets EXCITED when theres a book report to do! Is your sons teacher open to suggestions?
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Post by StrugglingAgain on Nov 14, 2004 19:02:07 GMT -5
My ds is in the third grade. His teacher has given us some more creative things to do for book reports, but even that is difficult. Today we did graphics on the computer, which seemed to interest him some. It could be that my son's penmanship is very poor and one of his more obsessive acts is to RE-trace everything he writes four times. No wonder his work takes so long and why he breaks so many pencils! We're working on an IEP with the first meeting 12/2 for info on his test results. Maybe something will come of that!
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Post by mom2tj on Nov 14, 2004 20:59:02 GMT -5
Oh my  DS is in 4th grade he has yet to have a book report Than God I dont think he could do it! the Creative writhing he had to do is had enough.... I make him do it on the computer that is a bit better but still... a book report please not yet...  since you asked us to be honest yes I've done my DS's home work once or twice... today acualy I've helped him a bit too much....oups |
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Post by camismom on Nov 15, 2004 9:37:24 GMT -5
ok Struggling.... I'll be honest enough to jump in and admit that I too have done this in the past with projects and research papers. I honestly feel Cami's problem was just not knowing where to begin or how to do it. She couldn't grasp the concept of whatr was expected, where to begin, how to do a bibliography, etc. It all seemed to overwhelming --- having to pick a topic, research the topic, write a thesis, note cards, bibliography cards, title page, report, bibliography... when faced with all this at once it's just too much for our kids to handle.
Cami has a teacher this year that is a total gem! They had a research project due today as a matter of fact and he broke it down into different due dates for them so it was looked at as different smaller projects,. not one big huge one. For example... the topic choice was due on a Monday. They did were given two weeks to research and given another due date two weeks later to turn in note cards. the next Monday bibliography cards were due. The next Monday the rough draft, and totday the final copy. I sat back and let Cami handle it this time. She did pretty good. The only thing I helped her with was typing it for her. She wrote it down and I typed it up for her.
I understand what you're saying though. It is so hard for them to do that sometimes it is just easier to jump in and do it for them to save sanity. I will admit there has been many times as well that Cami has had as much as 30 math problems in one night with all problems being the same type and I actually did some for her. I made her do at least half to show me she did indeed know how to do them and understod it. I now have it a part of her 504 that if that happens she only has to do half. To me it is just insane to make a kid spend all night laboring over homework. This is not reinforcing the lesson as homework is supposed to do... it is only making them miserable and making them hate school.
Is there a way you could speak to his teacher about him giving an oral book report? If he's like most of our kids he can tell you about the book, it's just getting it on paper that is hard.
I do say that it has gotten a little better with Cami as she has grown.... but only with much "nagging" on my part and letting her know outright that I'm not doing it for her. They do have to eventually learn that mom can't walk them thru their whole life. My youngest sister was that way and today as an adult can barely do anything for herself. I try to think of her when I'm tempted and tell myself I will not do that disservice to Cami.
I wish you luck....
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Post by StrugglingAgain on Nov 15, 2004 20:17:12 GMT -5
Thanks so much for the suggestions. My ds is even worse at getting up in front of people than he is writing. I think for now, we'll have to continue the way we have and perhaps with maturity it'll get better. He'll be starting some special ed (because of severe distractibility in the classroom) soon and maybe the special ed teacher will have some suggestions on how to get him to organize his thoughts and get it on paper. I'm afraid as he gets older that it'll become more and more difficult for him, but maybe if he did dictate to me and I could type it for him, even if it wasn't very well organized, he might be able to SEE that more clearly if it were written where he could read it better than struggling to read his own handwriting.
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Post by Allanque on Nov 15, 2004 21:57:28 GMT -5
When I had to analyze a book, it took someone sitting down with me and talking me through the entire thing while I typed it up.
As in "OK, we're dealing with the storyline here. What was the storyline? What happened there?" ad nauseaum.
Yeah. We cracked it out in about 2 hours and I'd spent about 2 months already freaking out over it.
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Post by eaccae on Nov 16, 2004 11:02:54 GMT -5
DS also has dysgraphia which makes it very hard. I had a perfectionism thing going on - I did the same thing with copying! I had a very hard time actually getting my work done because I would recopy my notes - I would get to the bottom of the page and then if I made a mistake (now a mistake means it didn't "look" the way I wanted it to) I would start over. I would do this when writing papers too. I would get half way through and then have to rewrite it before I could finish (which could take me reams of paper) and then I would finish another paragraph and then I would copy it all over, etc. . . (that got better in my twenties when I realized in life I didn't have time to do that). I would even rewrite my name on the top of a piece of paper about ten times before I would continue. It was maddening.
As for DS - he is in 4th and has dysgraphia. I have to "guide" him along. He is great verbalizing his ideas but he can't get them down and writing in general is really quite difficult for him - we may have to use a taperecorder for certain written assignments in the future. But I feel that with DS when I guide him a long - ask him questions that direct him towards his end goal, etc. - that he is still learning - I may be helping him but he is still going through the process - just with me. I will say for him - it has gotten much better with age. They have to summarize each night the chapters they read (at first I didn't know how we were going to do it) - I would ask him specific quetions, he would say them aloud and then write it all down. Now he doesn't even need me - he "gets" it (it may not be the most detailed but it is still pretty darn good). I actually think this is a good exercise for when they have to write the full report. Smart teacher after all!! But last year they had a big book report/presentation - they had to have poster-sized graphical charts, etc. I definitely had to help him out with that one! (But of course he choose Harry Houdini as his biography and he did too much over his lifetime!!! Too much stuff).
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Post by mskris on Nov 17, 2004 10:36:53 GMT -5
Okay, I admit it; I did this just this week. Ds 9, 4th grade, had to write a paper on the Algonquin Indians. Firstly, there is no such tribe as the Algonquins; there were a number of tribes linked by the Algonquian language, so the topic was way too broad. He was supposed to write about location, food, clothing, and shelter. Each of the "algonquian language" tribes was slightly different, and they ranged from east of the Mississippi to Canada! So, the ones in Ohio differed from the ones in New England and Canada, etc. The teacher didn't know enough to make a decent assignment! Anyway, he had to use two sources and have a bibliography. We used the computer because the local library was no help (due to the fact that there really aren't any "algonquin" indians). I had him read all the info I printed out from the web, and he and DH made a list of the info to include. But when it came time to put it into logical paragraphs, he was just incapable of doing it. Since it had to be typed, too, I had him dictate to me the points to be made and I typed the sentences into paragraphs. Then I made him read the paper to me 3 times aloud so he'd know the words and the content well if asked. To me, 4th grade is a little early to be doing a bibliographic research paper - especially on a topic like that! I soooo wanted to send a note to the teacher explaining her mistake in the assignment, but thought that wouldnt' go over too well.  I have helped my ds with similar projects before. He does all the reading, some of the writing, and ALL the artwork, if there's any involved. I just help him organize his thoughts and get them into logical sentences on paper. I don't feel bad about this at all, especially when I see other kids' work hanging up at school - you can't tell me that all those laminated reports containing sophisticated computer graphics were done by 9 year olds!! LOL  I do make sure ds knows the material, so he IS learning. To me, the point of this assignment wasn't the content, it was the process of getting the sources, pulling out the salient info, and organizing it into a cohesive narrative. As an English major and professional writer, I can teach him that. Kris |
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Post by StrugglingAgain on Nov 17, 2004 10:52:45 GMT -5
YOU being an English major and a professional writer must have helped immensely. I wonder if PART of the assignment is to GET the parents involved in their homework. I'm not opposed to that at all, but if it were only my husband....MAN, he's tired when he gets home from the office!!!! He still manages to take up his half of helping him, but all that being said, there is STILL no way my ds could do this on his own. Has he been sheltered, maybe. I'm with you on some of the lessons being taught now. The schools are so pushy on all the academia of the school setting and they forget that part of growing up is the social part of it. These children are still just children. I know, I know, we don't want the European countries to get ahead of us. On the other hand, ds in the third grade is learning algebra?? I don't want to see my child laboring over school work all the time....I like to hear him laugh so hard he falls on the ground, and I like to see him being creative when he's building a ramp for his cars to run on, and I like it that he's very best friends with the girls in the neighborhood. If all the kids do is school, school, school....well, that won't make for a very well-rounded person in the long run.
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Post by mskris on Nov 17, 2004 14:12:01 GMT -5
Hear, hear! Well-roundedness is a positive goal! I agree, I don't want my kids spending so much time on schoolwork or "educational" activities that they have no time for creative play and physical play! I'm a firm believer in kids being kids and carefree while they can. There will be plenty of time for schoolwork in their future. I, too, have many complaints about the curriculum. My ds is also doing algebra in 4th grade - IMHO it's ridiculous. His spoken vocabulary is great, but getting the words into logical sentences on paper, especially when having to mentally edit the vast material, is very difficult for him. My writing the paper was the only way to ensure that he could understand the process and the material (as I said, it had to be written in a general way because the info differed from tribe to tribe). There was no way he could have distilled the material into a one-page paper by himself. As far as I'm concerned, he'll learn to write papers just fine as time goes on. I'm beginning to think that the way material is presented is a problem in our school. While both my kids have high intelligence, both had trouble learning to read (especially now my 6 yo dd, who is NOT adhd). I'm having her tested for learning disabilities, but I think the problem is that not enough time was spent on basic letter recognition and phonics. She just has no ability to decode words at all. But now they're doing memorization of what they call "sight" words (IMHO some are not "sight" words, but whatever). They use "whole language," meaning that the kids should be writing words even though they don't know how to spell them or read them! It's just weird because I had no trouble learning to read, and neither did dh, and neither did our siblings, so what's wrong with our kids?? Maybe it's not our kids, but the manner in which they're being taught??  Anyway, I'm getting out my  and advocating for my dd! Poor thing is getting discouraged, and they're threatening to hold her back - over my DEAD BODY!!! sorry for the vent....but thanks for reading it! LOL kris |
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Post by camismom on Nov 17, 2004 14:25:46 GMT -5
Cami brought home an assignment last night that is due Monday. They are to decorate a brown paper bag with stuff about Africa and actually make three things that is related to African culture such as a mask, or jewelry... can't remember what else..... BUT, tell me please how my child is to make an African mask or piece of jewelry?  |
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Post by adhdtimes4 on Nov 17, 2004 14:50:14 GMT -5
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Post by vickilyn32 on Nov 17, 2004 14:50:44 GMT -5
Camismom, hit the craft store for beads, and use paper mache for the mask. We had to make indian costums and dwellings when the kids were in 5th grade. DS got a B because he should have used real mud. Like I want more mud in my house. I hated trying to make the costumes, DS never did wear one anyway.
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