how do you make short lessons work with a dawdler?

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  • June 27, 2012 at 3:37 pm
    caedmyn
    Participant

    My 6 YO DD likes to move very s.l.o.w.l.y.  Not because she struggles with her work–she’s actually quite bright.  She reads at about a 5th grade level, writes well, “gets” math, etc.  She is quite capable of working quickly and sometimes does, but often doesn’t.  We’re trying to finish up a couple of things from last year’s afterschooling, and working on a few small things this summer, and instead of it taking 30-40 minutes a day, it’s taking 1.5 to 2 hours because she is dawdling so much.  This is not just a summertime-tired-of-schoolwork problem as during the school year it was not unusual for her to come home with homework after 4.5 hours of school because she didn’t complete work that she was quite capable of doing in an hour at home if I kept on her (her school uses A.C.E. which is self-paced).

    So far this morning it took her 10 minutes to do memory work review that should only take 4-5 minutes (kept losing her place).  She spent 50 minutes doing 1.5 pages of Miquon math that she’s quite capable of doing in 15 minutes.  That was with me mostly next to her trying to motivate her to keep going in between trying to keep my 1.5 & 3.5 YOs from killing each other.  (She wasn’t overly distracted by her brothers either, just wouldn’t pay attention.)  I finally gave up on the math for the day.  How do you make 15-20 minute lessons work for a child who loves to dawdle?  Do you just not worry about it if they only get 1/2 a page of math done a day and it takes them 3 years to finish one year of math?

     

    June 27, 2012 at 4:21 pm
    4myboys
    Participant

    I know how you feel.  I have a boy who was the same way in PS (still is really) — always brought work home, had to miss recess to complete seat work, only completed maybe two crafts in two years at PS.  Like your daughter, he’s an extremely advanced reader, a wiz at math and spelling, etc, but the teachers almost never saw it.  Towards the end of grade 1 he was diagnoised with combined type ADHD.  This past year I have homeschooled him and his older brother.  Even now he dawdles through his school work.  It doesn’t matter that he isn’t allowed to do x, y or z until his work is done — he still gets distracted, wants to talk about things that aren’t related in any way. 

    I’ve found there are certain times of day which work better for him — like getting math and copywork done really early in the morning before the rest of the house is awake.  The best time for reading is at night.  I try to get him ready for bed early enough to enjoy a great read-aloud and still give him time to read to himself after I’ve left the room.  He’s too “busy” to read most of the day, but there’s nothing else to do during the evening.

    Sometimes, I will let him answer orally and (depending on the subject) write in his answers for him while he’s bouncing around the kitchen like a rubber ball.  I try to let him work on a subject for the alotted amount of time, then switch to another activity, for a bit before coming back to finish the first if need be. 

    June 27, 2012 at 4:41 pm
    Rachel White
    Participant

    Here’s my idea that I used. I suggest using an egg timer, set for 10-15 minutes at first.

    Pick an amount of problems she can do (less than she’s capable of finishing), with concentrated effort, in those ten-fifteen min. Telling her if she finishes early, and her work is neat, not sloppy, then she has extra time free.

    However if she doesn’t finish those problems within the time frame, then you move on to the next subject (a subject which uses a different part of the brain) and during normal playtime or free-time, she has to do those problems instead.

    So your making it her responsibility and she has to suffer the natural consequences; but it also empowers her to make choices (by developing better attetnion) to give herself more freedom. If you’re having to sit with all the time, you’re naggin and she’s not developing personal responsibility and self-focus.

    The key here though is you sticking with requiring her to finish those prblems during what would be free time-she’s going to test to see how serious you are about it.

    Generally speaking, she’ll get it eventually, how long depends on your consistancy and her will. I used this with my dd to increase her attention skills and it worked very well. It’s something I wish I had done with my son and he’s older now so I’m dealing with it an older stage-much harder than at her age where you should be able to reverse this before autumn.

    After she’s getting those few (at first) problems done with free time as a result, increase her time and amount of problems gradually; to no longer than the CM recommended time. If she’s really good at a subject and she’s finshing all the problems early, every time, it may not be hard enough-but don’t worry about that yet. First things first is training her in atttention. If you don’t get that and obedience down, everything is futile, IMO.

    A special note: since she’s been in ps, you’re undoing bad habits. Also, consider what she’s eating, since many things in the american standard diet (colors, preservatives, bad fats, chemicals,etc) contribute to a lack of attention; but on the flip side there are other things that are helpful to the brain to increase attention.

    HTH

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