My son just turned 13 and is in 8th grade. We found out through deficiency notices that he is not getting much work done in class, i.e., keeping up his algebra and science notebook and history journal. These journal/notebooks are turned in periodically for a substantial part of their grade.
My son hates to write to begin with as it has always been a real struggle for him. We can’t seem to get him to get with the program with this issue, and it is hurting his grades, which is making him feel more and more discouraged about school.
We are at a loss here. Our son is a very bright kid, but he can’t seem to tell us why he doesn’t take notes, although he seems to understand the connection between keeping this notebooks/journals up and his resulting grade.
His teachers seem to be comfortable simply letting him sit and do nothing and I suppose they feel that, by middle school, kids know what they need to do and should be doing it without help. However, my son obviously needs some help and/or a “kick in the butt”. Anyone have some suggestions?
Re: How to get a kid to take notes...
Thanks for your note. My son does not have a learning disability but his fine motor skills have always been behind. His writing is legible and sometimes every quite nice, but he goes at it like he is digging post holes and his hand simply cramps up. And, of course, the usual— he has trouble staying focused when he is bored. Not too much exciting about writing notes about the components of a chart…
We are in the process of having him retested and redefining his IEP, so maybe we can, as you suggest, bring this into his IEP.
Thanks again for your thoughts…
Adrienne
Re: How to get a kid to take notes...
Has your son ever used an alphasmart or a laptop for writing? If he is not taking notes because he can’t listen and handwrite at the same time, or because his hand gets tired and cramped, using a keyboard might help.
Re: How to get a kid to take notes...
Andrea, what a good idea! What is an alphasmart?
His keyboarding skills aren’t great, but I’m sure he would like that option better than writing. I think some of the problem is having to listen and write at the same time as the whole process seems to overwhelm him. I am going to bring this up at our upcoming meeting. Thanks, again.
Adrienne
Re: How to get a kid to take notes...
If simultaneous listening and writing is a problem, the teacher’s lecture could be taped then notes done at home.
Re: How to get a kid to take notes...
An alphasmart is a portable keyboard. They are inexpensive, lightweight and durable. Whatever is typed can be saved as a file and uploaded to a computer to be printed, using either infrared or a cable. The newer ones come with spellcheckers and you can add “applets” such as Co:Writer (word prediction software). The newest alphasmart product is called the Dana. It operates on the Palm operating system. I’m not sure if it is out yet. You can get more information at www.alphasmart.com. Also there are a couple of threads talking about Alphasmarts and Danas on the Teaching with Technology board. One more thing you might consider is whether your son could use a PDA with an attached keyboard to take notes.
Andrea
Re: How to get a kid to take notes...
Can your son read at grade level? If he can’t, then he probably has trouble visualizing words. This may very well be the reason that your son can’t take notes. My daughter had this problem so we put in her IEP that she was to be given a copy of the notes either from the teacher or one of the classmates that takes good notes. Why frustrate him further. And, if he isn’t reading at grade level, he should be in a remedial reading class.
Re: How to get a kid to take notes...
I have heard that particular writing utensils can be overly distracting to a child. My friends IEP includes the ability to use a mechanical pencil. It was isolated he had dysgraphia and the “sound” other pencils made prevented him from being sucessful.
Re: How to get a kid to take notes...
If writing has always been a struggle for him (although you don’t say how exactly) it makes sense that taking notes will be even harder. Most students don’t really know how to take notes and - while teachers expect it - few teachers teach the skill of notetaking. A kick in the butt isn’t called for but help with the task certainly is.
There are two approaches to this. Teach your son how to begin taking notes. If the teacher writes anything down on the board at all, advise him to copy that into his notebook. That would be a start. Also have him date his notebook - teachers love that.
The other suggestion would be to have him bring his journals home at night and help him ‘beef them up’. I did much the same for my own son. I would type notes from the textbook or things he remembered from class and we’d paste that in his notebook. Tell the teachers he feels he needs to add to his understanding of the material through nightly review and more note taking as an explanation for taking the journals home (they should lap that up)
I’d also encourage you to look into an Alphasmart. Can your son type? I’ve seen the fairly inexpensive device that is an Alphasmart help students dramatically with the task of notetaking.
Good luck.
I am not a teacher but here is my thought, if he struggles to write normally, then trying to take notes during lecture is probably torture for him. You could ask for a copy of the teacher’s notes or those of a good student, an outline of the lecture from the teacher could help (a preview of the lesson sort of). If it is organization of the notebook itself (my son had this last year in 7th, notebook checks and all), periodically I would go through it myself and try to get papers in order. If at all possible maybe see if the points could be made up somewhere else, extra credit maybe? At least see if they teachers can cut him some slack on the notebook, partial credit for effort at least. Is his writing struggle caused by the actual process of using a writing instrument (grapho-motor)or the process of getting his thoughts organized on the paper(written expression)? If your son is on an iep, bring this up to the sp.ed teacher. If he is not, has he been evaluated by the school for learning disabilities? If not, it would be worth looking into. Best wishes.