Hello. This is my first post here. My 11-year-old son and I were both in tears this afternoon over him not getting the directions for two homework projects, one of them a major project.
He is a smart kid who is finally shining a bit academically this year, but he can’t remember directions, won’t or can’t write things down, and is ashamed to ask for help. He goes to a Catholic school, so any help with his special needs is up to me to explain to the teacher.
I’m tired of feeling trying to keep on top of things for him. We need a better way. Any ideas? His issues include attention and focus, sensory integration, and auditory processing problems.
Do any of your kids use tape recorders for notes and assignments? How does that work?
Thanks
We do have a daily planner that both the teacher and I sign, but it just has the bare essentials in it. The points systems sounds like a good idea. We used smiley faces last year, but he may be getting to old for that now.
Even though it’s raining outside, today is brighter for all of us. Thanks for being there.
Joan
Re: Getting the directions
Some teachers post homework assignments online. My son’s 5th grade teacher posts assignments for the week at a web site called schoolnotes.com. This is great for ALL students, and it also doesn’t single out kids who have problems recording stuff in their assignment notebooks.
Re: Getting the directions
I’d be a little concerned about the “can’t or won’t write things down” and I’d need to understand that better. Writing things down is a life skill. How are his writing skills in general? And while I understand his mixed feelings about asking for help, that’s also a goal for him to work toward. We all need to ask for help when it’s needed.
What’s his teacher like? Is she a teacher who would be responsive to his needs? If she is, I’d consider letting her know that he’s reluctant to take the risk of asking for help. A good teacher would want to gently help him to feel comfortable with asking for help.
Does the teacher give any handouts? That might be a help. At my school just recently we put together a web site with homework on it that children and families can access from their home computer. I’m sure it won’t be long before all schools are doing this. A homework buddy or someone you can call is another approach to all of this.
Re: Handouts
He missed getting a handout for the major project. It was a full page of very specific directions. Neither of us would have found out about it had I not asked some questions about the project at his conference last week. I don’t know if he missed getting this or if it’s lost in his desk somewhere. The other assignment was for Spanish, which is just once a week. He didn’t remember the instructions so I had to call two classmates to get them. He would have preferred to just do it himself without knowing what to do rather than call for directions.
I’m having a private conference with his teacher this week. I’ve already mentioned how my son is afraid to ask questions. (This is the product of his last year’s teacher.)
He has very poor penmanship, hates writing and will do anything to write as little as possible, so there is very little to go on in his daily planner. Also, the planner only comes out at the end of the day and they just copy things off the board. He needs to be writing down the directions that are talked about during each class period. I’m going to start sending him to school with a small notebook he can keep in his pocket and hope he records things in it.
I’m not sure if this will help. He has a hard time taking notes. I read somewhere that this is common in people with memory disorders. Just the physical act of writing calls on a lot of memory skills, and trying to remember the content of what someone is saying overloads the circuits. Is anyone familiar with that?
Re: Handouts
My son also has great difficulty in writing things down. He has very poor penmanship and is very slow and deliberate when writing down his assignments, so sometimes he doesn’t get them all down. Yet he has not been diagnosed with ADD. I still think he has something, maybe a mild case of ADD and dysgraphia.
A few things could help, one might be a school/home notebook for writing down homework, the teacher would initial it to show that she had seen it and the homework was copied down correctly, you would initial it to show the teacher you had seen it. Another thing would be to have a good student buddy who could help with either the copying or by providing a copy of his own homework sheet. We use the homework planner notebook, that way if something is unclear, I can write notes back to the teacher or she can write to me. We also use a point/reward system so that he is responsible for getting the teacher signatures. Other folks have asked that homework be emailed or mailed home ahead of time, I haven’t really found teachers to be big on this, they like to be more flexible. Anyway, I hope this helped some, good luck to your son, 11 is an interesting age.(so is 12 :o) )