I have a group of 8th Grade LD students that I am having a very difficult time with. They come into reading class unmotivated, with an unwillingness to work, complete homework, etc. I also have these same students for a Study Skills/Study Hall class and face even more issues with students not bringing work to class and not wanting to do anything. The work assigned to these students is not above their capabilities except for mainstreamed classes. I have tried several things, such as positive reinforcement, extra assignments for not completing work, not following rules, communicating with parents, write-ups to the office and there really hasn’t been any change. It’s almost like they work together as a group to act this way. I have had little successes, but nothing that seems to last. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Re: Discipline/Motivation LD Students
Thank you for your response, I appreciate your comments. I agree with you that assigning them extra work defeats the whole purpose. If they’re not going to do the work assigned to them, do you really expect them to do the extra assignment? No, and that’s why I stopped doing that.
You did give me an idea that I am going to try in my classroom and it’s not that I didn’t think of it before. It just sparked an idea to try with them. I am going to take my sheet of questions and break them into smaller pieces so it doesn’t look so overwhelming. Then, once they finish a piece, I will give them the next piece.
Being that this is my first year in this position, working with 8th graders is new to me. It has been frustrating to see their lack of effort and motivation, but you reminded me that who could blame them after years of failure. I just want to be successful with them. I want to see them care. I know that I am teaching them at their appropriate levels and that’s why I know they can be successful at doing the work. I’ve worked with them individually to know their capabilities.
My study skills class has been even more frustrating with the fact that they don’t bring work with them to do in class. I see this class as an opportunity to not only work on homework they might have in all classes, but as an extra help session. For some reason, they don’t see it this way.
Thanks again for your response.
Rebecca
Re: Discipline/Motivation LD Students
Rebecca,
If these students are anything like my son (and they sound like it) they probably don’t see it as a way to complete homework, or extra help, they just see the picture as more work to do that they hate. Plus, if they are disorganized as my son, they probably just can’t get it all together enough to bring the work to you. In their jumbled up, overwhelmed mind, work that was assigned two periods ago is long forgotten to them. I don’t know if all these kids have the same homework assignments or not, but if they did, and you could do it, it would help them if you could find out what the assignments were from the other teachers. I’m sure if you remind them of what’s due, they’ll say oh yeah that’s right. Or they might not remember at all….that’s happend with my son, swears he didn’t know, and he probably didn’t….his mind was somewhere else at that moment. Also one teacher just writes the assingment on the board along with the notes for the day, since he can’t read any of it, he doesn’t realize it’s an assignment. It’s really nice to see that you care about these kids. I admire you…you have your work cut out for you. I can’t imagne working with a whole class of these kids…..my one just about gets the best of me at homework time. If only regular teachers realized that a LD kid has to work three times as hard as a non-Ld kid, to just do a medicore job. Can’t really blame these kids for getting frustrated and so much homework is busy work, we waste so much time when we could be studying instead of doing busy work, that won’t benefit him.
The work assigned to these students is not above their capabilities except for mainstreamed classes.
That sentence could be the key to the whole problem. I see it with my own son. After spending the day in classes where eveything is over your head and you feel completly overwhelmed the last thing any kid is going to want to do is start all over.
They are tired and burnt out. Put yourself in their place, say you’ve been in a class all day that you know nothing about and everyone else around you seems to understand, how do you feel?
I went to a meeting at work one day, about retirement, investing money, 401K plans….I understood nothing. As I was sitting there, bored to death, not paying attention….I thought this must be how my son feels everyday at school. I would try breaking the assingments done into smaller sections, give them a couple of things at a time. It feels overwhelming to be faced with a whole sheet of things you don’t know how to do. Give them a couple at a time, let them work through those and feel confident. I think the whole problem is that after going to school for 8 years and always failing at what they do they don’t care anymore, and can you really blame them. I know with my son if has just a little bit of success, it motivates them to try. One thing I would never do is punish them with more work, that defeats the whole purpose, that will only make them not want to try at all.
I admire you as being a teacher who cares enough to want to help your kids, wish more of my son’s teachers were that way.