My son (7 yrs.) was recently diagnosed with a cognitive learning disability. He has trouble reading, writing, concentrating and has very low self-esteem. Lately at his new school, a classroom that teaches children with LD’s, he is having trouble again. In his morning writing assignments, which consists of writing the day, month, date, year and a sentence of what they will do that day, he begins and get’s 1/2 way done and then just erases it all and sits there. The teacher says the work he starts is fine, but we are unsure why he is now erasing everything he does….
He struggles with reading, pronunciation, writing, every aspect of school. We have no idea what to do, or to tell his teacher to try. He is a wonderful boy, we just aren’t sure what is causing him to sit at his desk frustrated, miss recess and things because he won’t complete his assignmetns.
Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks, it’s just so hard for us to know what to do or say around him anymore to encourage him to want to learn, work and do his best.
From the point of 'been there, done that'...
I really agree with Victoria. Hindsight being 20/20, I wish I had taught my son to use a pen and cross out neatly anything he did not like. We had problems (under a somewhat picky and slightly disdainful Ms. 4rth Grade) with erasing a WHOLE paragraph or even half a page…then running out of time and having nothing to mark!
Using a pen might have earlier taught my son NOT to strive for perfection — just legible thoughts on paper that could be marked. Took a grade 5 teacher he really liked and respected to stop this tendency and get him to understand that ALL work was valuable; even ‘wrong’ answers were important to help the teacher understand what we need to learn.
Thank You
Thanks for the tips. I will encourage my son’s teacher to allow him to use a pen and we will do the same here at home. It’s a start and we can see what happens from here! Thanks SO much, Cindy
Re: Cognitive Learning Disability
You might also consider suggesting to his teachers in this LD classroom that he be permitted to type the required morning writing assignment. He can work on handwriting separately. He may also need to dictate something or, if handwriting isn’t the root issue of his reluctance, it may be that he is having trouble generating ideas about what he will do that day. My son often had that kind of problem. What helps is to guide the child by asking questions such as: What day is it today? And what do we usually do on Tuesdays? What do we do in the morning? What do we do after reading? etc.,you get the point. It is sometime necessary to be quite specific in order for the child to figure out what to say. It is in his head but stuck in a traffic jam, so to speak, and can’t get out. Giving him a pen will allow him to cross out what he doesn’t feel comfortable with, but it won’t help him know what to say, if that is the problem.
Re: Cognitive Learning Disability
I have lots more suggestions and outlines which I am always happy to share. Instead of re-posting the same things over and over, I have saved down the old posts and email them out on request. Just send a note to [email protected] and I try to get a batch out every few weeks.
You are going to need to do a lot of work on a lot of fronts, but here is just one little bit to start with:
I refuse to use pencils. Throw them all out. It’s a writing class, not an erasing class. I give my students nice smooth-gliding rolling writer pens (which are much much easier on the hand anyway) and we quit the erasing game. It’a amazing how much more work gets done, and how much more readable it is. So you make a mistake — so what? X it out and go on.
If your son is just caught in a bad habit trap this will help a lot. If he is having serious issues, he may destroy his paper anyway in other ways, and that would be a sign of extreme frustration which needs to be addressed quickly, before you can address any of the other issues.
But try the pen and see if it helps.