Last week, I worked with the lass on her homework packet. She chose to start at the beginning (perfectly reasonable) which involved writing a paragraph. The assignment was to write a “story” about a bike.
Things started off rough, and went downhill from there. The back of the page, where she thought she had to write the story, didn’t have enough space for a story. She wrote a single sentence and thought she’d finished because she wouldn’t be able to fit more. After that, the weeping started and she didn’t know how to write a story about a “stupid bike.”
Rather than fight her and force her to finish, I steered her towards the rest of the homework. She gradually settled down as the rest consisted of fill-in-the-blank type questions, spelling practice and some math. By the time we’d finished, she only had the bike story to work on and I chose not to push her on that for the rest of the evening. Instead, I tried to give her some ideas to think about. She still had most of the week to figure it out.
The Wife was able to get her to complete the paragraph the next day. Her spelling practice continued and there were no more emotional outbursts over homework for the rest of the week.
We also met with her teacher towards the end of the week to discuss her difficulties. We were most concerned with her attitude towards reading. Reading has been a chore for her and she’s been very resistant to it in any form. She doesn’t want to leave the comfort of her picture books and his suggestion was to not force the issue. We even came up with a ploy to offer to let her read to kindergartners. The Wife and I figured it would appeal to her Mother-hen streak.
Yesterday, she received her latest homework packet and she worked on it without issue. She hasn’t completed it yet because it’s a big packet this week, but she’s completed most of it. There is another writing assignment in it as well. Amusingly, this time the teacher provided a separate page for the paragraph with plenty of space to write her story.
Also, she was excited to tell the Wife that her teacher had asked her if she would like to read to the kindergartners. There was little doubt as to her enthusiasm for the opportunity and she even told the Wife how much she “likes to read.” The Wife did a good job of sounding surprised at such a revelation.
So her current status is a marked improvement in her homework attitude. I suspect there will be future bumps along the way because when it comes to children, nothing comes easy. The fact that she’s on more favorable footing though, is a welcome relief. Now it’s just a matter of helping her build momentum to keep it that way..