Organization Skills - how to build them

I’d make a checklist without words.
My kids problem was having to write,so of course having a blank space to write something that they couldn’t read later was a real trip:-) What we did,was made off the computer. It had a picture with a question mark,then a space. One picture of “A is for apple” meant spelling. The question mark was do you have spelling homework? a check in the blank meant yes they did. Below this was a list of equipment he must have in his book bag.
Spelling was,
word list
book
you could easily come up with a picture to signify the euipment needed to do the home work.

Okay now,with that being said,if they have ADHD,they still don’t fill out the paper,so I majorily had to bribe them,before they got into the habit of doing it.I bought a bunch of party favors,little toys,candy,pokemon cards and put them in a box. On friday if the sheet was fill out all week,then they got to pick one thing from the box. It worked pretty good,and it was of course on the IEP.The teacher gave them a certificate,they liked this also. It most definitely is a cooperative effort.

I like the picture/check mark idea. Very creative.

As much as I was against it in the beginning, rewards as incentives really did work for us as well. My son loves to shop. Buying anything, even a pack of gum, is a thrill for him. So he would usually decide during the week what he would be working up to buying after he remembered everything for the week.

Since he has some real memory issues, I did not demand perfection. That is just cruel. But this incentive really did help improve this forgetting thing with homework.

He was in 4th grade and they were issued an 8 1/2 x 11 assignment book that just was not working for him. So I bought him the smallest memo book I could find that he could keep on his desk and wrote on each page the subjects. One page for each day. If he had spelling homework all he had to do was write the page number next to the word spelling. If there was none he scratched out the word. Having the small book on the desk all day helped to remind him to write it down as it was assigned instead of trying to remember everything at the end of the day.

Now, the trick was trying to remember which books and papers needed to come home. It was supposed to be the sped teachers job to make sure everything was in the bag, but it never happened. And who was penalized, not her.

So, we are working on a system for remembering supplies for this year.

Also, when we switched to the clear backpack (the see-through kind) many more things started coming home.

I subbed at a school where an aide went into the class for the
last ten minutes and lead a boy through the tasks he needed
to preform.
After a couple of months he was able to do it himself.

Anne

This is one of our biggest struggles. Often the homework was written down but she had forgotten the book ! AND I would fuss at her, but I’m the same way and I KNOW how frustrating it is so I just tell her “you know, you CAN be smart and forgetful, so you need to find a way to compensate”.

One way that has helped us alot has been having the telephone number of a very organized friend in the class who we can call! It’s not exactly what I had in mind for compensation, but it works in a pinch.

Last year every child in his class had a see thru folder for bringing papers back and forth and that worked pretty well. I am hoping to build a partnership with his teacher in september, but we have no IEP (private school) so we’ll have to see how much help we really get. Love the checklist idea with pictures. And I’m a big believer in bribery!! It works for us too!!