how do you handle a high schooler who really struggles with independent learning?

[Jodi-FL]

my 2nd child, sweet, sweet, girl, has always struggled academically. She's an older 9th grader (May birthday, started K at 6yo) and I don't feel I have the time to devote to explaining things to her as much as she needs (the same thing over and over and over). She's using MUS for Algebra, but even after I explain and she watches the video, she still needs help. every single day. She's great at language/grammar. But for Latin (TLRTEG) she needs help. every single day. I have an older child, and 5 younger than her. and while I love the time spent with her, and we are in a great rhythm/routine otherwise, I just don't know what to do to get her to work through some of these things herself. I don't remember Algebra all that well, and I never learned Latin before teaching it to my kids, so I feel like every night *I* have homework just to be able to intelligently answer all the questions this child comes up with.

at what point do you recognize/accept a child's academic limitations? this is probably the wrong board for asking, almost everyone here has really smart, academic kids, but I don't know where else to ask. I don't know anyone who has a struggling high school learner.

[Kathy in MD]

I've yet to accept that he's accomplished all that he can in certain fields, but then he's only in the 7th grade (held back one year). I'm also still pushing basic math, thinking skills and writing sentences and paragraphs. But my plans for ds's math include Algebra II, and an additional year after that.

But when to stop pushing? I haven't learned that. But if I had, ds wouldn't be as far as he is now. A few years ago, his tutor said he'd never be able to write beyond straight formulaic writing. Since then, I've discovered some teaching resources and I think he'll be able to write acceptably well. I kept banging my head against the wall about getting him to think. I'm finally beginning to see the glimmers of thinking. So I'll keep searching and looking for better ways to reach my minimum goals in every field and to push those areas he's interested in.

[Nan in Mass]

I know that doesn't help your scheduling problems now, but it might be comforting. When he finished 8th grade, I told my older son that he had to be more independent and learn more on his own. He got all sad and begged me just to keep doing school the way we always had. At first, I was worried about the lack of independent learning. He sure wouldn't be doing things the way everyone else here seemed to be. After a while, though, I remembered that *I* hadn't learned that way at his age. I sat in class with the teacher telling me what to do, and then I came home and my mother helped me with English and my father with math and science. I'm very good at math, but my father did my homework with me almost every day all the way through high school. I was in the high math class, and almost all my classmates had engineering fathers, too, who did their math with them, or at least were available to help every evening. When I got to college, I had no trouble doing my math on my own, so it didn't make me dependent. I just happened to understand my father's explainations better than either the teacher's or the books, and my father was patient and didn't mind spending the time with me. He's doing the same with my oldest, now, for which I am incredibly grateful. Oldest is 20 and taking a refresher math course before going to college and we all know that there is no way he would sit down and do it at the end of a long day's work without company. Nobody thinks this will handicap him later. We just think that it is important to get the foundations laid well so he can build on it later on his own. He was in public school and we didn't help him with the foundations the first time round, a mistake we're trying to fix now. But I'm meandering in my effort to give you examples. Getting back to the children I'm homeschooling, my older child, while intelligent enough, isn't good at academics, so I said ok and just continued to teach him his Latin and math (particularly) and read his literature aloud with him. I solved the scheduling-more-than-one-child problem by teaching his younger brother along with him for great books and Latin and science. The younger one does piano and French while I do math with the older one, then the older one does piano and history reading (which he is doing on his own) and/or writing while I do math with the younger one. This solution probably won't work with you, but I found that even with a 4 year difference between them, as unlikely as it sounds, it was easy to do. I just expect a lower level of output from the younger child. I suppose you could say that I did "give up" on the older one a bit when I decided it wouldn't hurt him to have his brother included in the things he was learning, since it definately means we go a bit slower and cover the basics a bit more, but I think that is good for this particular older one. Meanwhile, I switched to doing math and Latin twice a day. They have "homework" in the evening, even if it is just a few problems or sentences. That makes them see the subject twice a day, which improved retention, and gives them the opportunity to work on their own. I'm usually too busy to help with homework. If they can't figure it out, we tackle it together the next day. At least they've tried, though. It also means that they need to keep a schedule book, which is good practice. I with them fought them (and in the case of the younger one, am still fighting) to get them to use it for several years before it sank in, but it was worth it. This is getting long, and I'm sorry because I don't know how useful it will be to you. I just want to encourage you to keep working with your daughter. I put what I felt was a disproportionate amount of time into my son, and during those high school years (he's a junior now), he developped hugely! He is doing an online writing class totally on his own now, and even managed some easy CC classes last semester! He developped some interests and passions. I still teach him some subjects, but some he has managed to do on his own! When I think how far he has come since mid-way through 9th grade, I can't believe it! I just let him keep getting lots wrong and kept going, rather than trying to find material where he would get more problems right. I don't grade. I did make a few modifications. Because he was so slow to get anything done, I decided to let him get his grammar through our Latin. Latin takes longer this way, but not as long as grammar and Latin separately would have. I continued to work on writing as a separate subject. I made sure that his math was applied, very applied, so he would get it more easily and it wouldn't seem a waste of his time when he looked back on the several hours a day he spent on it when he was grown up. I had him just read history on his own and put our effort into doing literature together because we simply don't have time to do both. His writing, which I totally despaired of, has improved to the point where I expect he will survive his CC composition class this spring. He used to take 2 hours to write a paragraph. It just turned out that he grew tons during high school. I hope this encourages you some. I felt like I was neglecting my younger son, but a few years of "reading something school-like" while I dealt with his older brother doesn't seem to have hurt him. If anything, it has made him more independent and creative and full of odd bits of knowledge from all those library books he's read.

This is a complete mishmash and way too long. Sorry. Hopefully there are a few kernals of useful or comforting stuff in amongst.

-Nan

[periwinkle]

My middle ds has always struggled academically (particularly tough for him because his older and younger brothers excel). He has his own set of gifts, though...he is highly creative and charming. We simply keep plugging away at high school subjects and sometimes we spin our wheels when he gets "stuck." I have always had to use multiple presentation methods for math; it is no different with Algebra this year. Our core text is Lial, but I have Kinetic books downloaded on the computer and other books on the shelf. Yes, it is time-consuming and sometimes exasperating, but worth it in the end. AND the progress is there...it is just a good bit slower than expected. As Nan said, you might be surprised as the high school years go by. I can see more independence in my ds's work now than I did 6 months ago, although I still have to be directly involved much more than I would prefer. I am convinced he is a late bloomer and all things will even out in the end!

Anyway, know that you have much support here for struggling students as well as the gifted ones!!

Blessings!

[ccm]

This thread has been such an encouragement to me! Thank you!

Cyrena

married 27 years to dh
Mom of dd24, ds20, dd19, and homeschooling dd13

[Paz]

My dd is a 9th grade as well. She is dyslexic and has not really been an independent learner until recently. She is a visual learner and learns best with computer lessons and workbooks so we have incorporated that as much as possible into our day. She does SOS for History/Geography and Spanish this year. There is a voice control where the lessons can actually be read aloud to her. Sometimes she uses these features and other times she doesn't. We also use the read along CD for Apologia Biology. It really helps that she can hear the larger vocabulary words pronounced for her.

I have had to decide what is important for us to learn and what we can do without. My dd is extremely interested in animals and science so we place a lot of energy in this area. She loves to write creatively so instead of getting bogged down in factual writing (which she cannot do very well right now) we are using Write Shop and she has written the most amazing paragraphs. Eventually this program moves into more factual writing and I think she'll be ready for it then. We have also given up on Latin because it just didn't work for us. That may be not be popular in a classical education circle, but she is learning vocabulary and language in other areas and the energy it took to master Latin in being used in other areas that are more enjoyable and more successful for her. I still do have to spend the time in math with her and is it difficult and time consuming. We have found that if I go over it with her either first thing in the morning or in the evening as homework then we can get it done and still get our other subjects and activities in. This year we are using Jacobs Elementary Algebra and it has been a good fit for us. She also only does school about 3 to 4 hours a day. We do what we need to do and I allow time for free reading and drawing.

My suggestion is to decide what you believe is necessary and important for her to learn and include her interests and strengths in this decision. If you look closely at her personality and interests you may see her struggles not as limitations but as keys to taking her learning in a new direction.

I sound positive today because today was a good school day. We struggle and are frustrated just about daily with the difficulties of schooling. :)

[Ruth in Canada]

Hmm . . . I would consider my dc gifted but not independent learners. DD is grade 9 age and requires quite a bit of my time. I do see great strides over this year, however, so I'm very hopeful that I won't need to continue to provide this level of support. However, she is one who likes to talk and interact--and because she doesn't have a classroom full of people to do that with, I need to help meet that need. Until she's talked about something, I can't be sure she's mastered a concept.

I don't know how I'd manage the number of kids you are working with--hopefully others will help with that. I just wanted to let you know that inability to work independently doesn't always mean not academically talented!

[Nan in Mass]

I think a lot of the pressure came off when we finally figured out what my middle child WAS good at, other than being a sweetheart. Obviously it wasn't conventional academics, although he had flashes here and there that made me wonder if he was going to excell at one of the more obscure subjects like topology or astrophysics/philosophy or something that take years and years of academics to get to. But as he's grown older, it became more obvious where his talents lie, and these are so awsome that we're no longer worried about him. He himself has gone from refusing to think about growing up to coming up with several very good options for further education and a career and his contribution to the world. And everyone he gets near seems to love him so much and think he's such a great, talented person that they offer to teach him how to do what they do to make a living, everything from tree work to plumbing to crew on a fishing boat to tourguide. Any of those options would probably work, too, although I'd prefer that he get some more education first. I'm really glad now that I let him go out into the world a bit and mix with other adults, and that I didn't push for independent academics at home, just made sure he was continuing to learn. The combination has allowed him to gain maturity and confidence in the area he WAS good at, and that has spilled over somewhat into the area where he struggled and helped him along. This was a really hard decision at the time. Shouldn't we make him do more academics because he needs extra work in that area? But that takes time away from the things he could be doing that he might be better at? We made the decision to allow him to spend the time developing a talent and becoming very good at something, rather than putting the time into academics, at which we thought he would be mediocre at best. We decided he just wouldn't be able to spell or punctuate, probably, and would need to get someone to edit his writing for the rest of his life. We decided that he would probably always read slowly, but made sure he could read well enough to read a textbook and read for enjoyment. We decided that he would never have the history dates down, but wanted him to have some sense of perspective, so we let him just read history rather than answer questions and memorize facts. We decided he would never be able to make a speech, but we put time into making sure he could tell a story fairly well (that seeming like an important adult skill). Then he surprised us by deciding to take speech in community college because it sounded useful, and getting an A in it. Now we're not so sure that the academics won't be much better than we thought. I knew he would be a late bloomer, but somehow I forgot that the word "bloom" is included in the phrase.

So I vote that you don't give up on the academics, in case your child is a late bloomer rather than a non-bloomer, and that you let them pursue other interests, especially those that mix them with the community, so they can bloom elsewhere, if not in school.

-Nan

[5wolfcubs]

Nan in Mass -- Can you share what curriculum you used for your ds? A lot of things you said rang true for me regarding my oldest (currently in 7th)...she just can't seem to punctuate, remember dates, find elements on the periodic table, and other things that the next two can do with ease.

I'm trying to chart a course for high school and could use some btdt advice! Part of me wants to put her into a single academic program (like CLE or K12) so that I'm sure the bases are covered and I'm not constantly lowering the bar. But part of me wants to do self-designed courses along the lines of NARHS that focus on her interests.

Thank you for sharing about your son, it was an encouragement to me today!!:)

[Jan P.]

Jody,

I have a dyslexic dd who takes hours getting her work done. So far that I've read, all the suggestions have been great! I use Math Relief Algebra I, but we are going very slow. I talked to my umbrella school leader and she said that we could call our Algebra class, Algebra IA, and next year it would be Algebra IB. She said that is what the public school does, so it's ok for us too. I usually hate trying to do something that is like the public school, but this was the best solution for us.

I do have to give grades which I don't really like to do, so I'm not quite sure how to grade my dd's history. She is reading SWB's Ancient History book, but so far she is only reading it and trying to learn how to take notes and summarize. I guess I'll figure something out (unless someone out there has a great idea of how to evaluate her). I've even thought of just have her "tell me back" (oral narration), and then move to written narrations like a Charlotte Mason way of doing things.

We are also using the Lord of the Rings Curriculum. She loves the Lord of the Rings, so I got this to help her to learn to analyze literature. So far our discussions have been pretty good, but we don't do the busy work with it.

I've also had to go to a more basic science (Integrated Physics and Chemistry). It is the course recommended by the Andreolas (Charlotte Mason fans). It seems more middle schoolish, but I do think my dd is learning enough chemistry that it will help her with biology. I like the stories included in the books to make science interesting. My dd is very story/plot driven, so I think this method helps her to remember things.

I agree with the others in that the pursuing of other interests rather than academics is quite helpful. My dd is taking ballet, and she is also involved with a dance company. This has given her some joy to her life instead of having her nose in the books all of the time.

I also gave up Latin with her. She's studying Italian which is close to Latin (of course, it is a Romance language), but it seems to be easier. I have spent a lot of time on the culture of Italy using videos I get from blockbuster.com .

So my dd does about half of her work independently and half dependent on me. I have found that letting her use the answer keys more after she has done her homework problems help to reinforce what she has learned. She sees what she has done right or wrong and is able to go back and correct mistakes. This helps her from having to redo work too so that I don't have to even spend more time with her on math or science. I keep answer keys of quizzes and tests separate from homework answer keys.

FWIW,

[Nan in Mass]

You may not like my solutions. I have a super high tolerance for wrong answers GRIN and when I'm not totally despairing, it doesn't really bother me if my son gets 2/3 of the questions wrong, as long as he understands what he did wrong.

We use Singapore for math, and Keys to Algebra. This may not be the best, but it is very applied and has definately "fixed" my child's mathematical thinking, so we've stuck with it. He is in 11th grade now and doing NEM3.

We use Ecce Romani for Latin. *I* learn well with this, and if I learn well, then I can teach it. I understand the grammar explainations, which don't assume that I know any English grammar, there are enough excersizes that we have half a chance of catching on by the end (even though there aren't enough to actually memorize the material - for that we use try to use flashcards, or more likely, the charts and dictionary at the back of the book), and a huge biggy if I'm doing the teaching, it isn't boring. It is reading based and teaches top down, which drives lots of people crazy but suits us just fine. I don't care if when answering the questions about the story the children don't give grammatically correct answers. They are using the new grammar and I know that it will explain how to do it next. The idea is to get them familiar with the material, see it and use it a little, then explain it. For my top-down learner, this is good. If I try to explain the details first, he can't retain them long enough to put them together into the big picture. Saxon math didn't work for this reason.

For logic stage history, we did Kingfisher with outlining, skipping the timeline which was too time consuming and the reports. I told him to ignore the paragraph structure of the text and organize the outline any way he pleased. As long as I did this, he could outline. Before that, he struggled. I only occasionally checked his outlines. I had him fill in the maps in the map outline book in TWTM. We did the Klutz geography book. We read quite a few library books together (History of Everyday Things and Pharoahs of Ancient Egypt were favourites), and he read Early Times Greek, Roman, and Medieval, and Hakim to himself. He just read them. We didn't have time to do anything else. Now he is reading Spielvogel's Western Civ to himself. I have to say that this loose method of doing history seems to have worked. I'm not saying he would do ok on the SAT2 or anything, but he knows lots of history and applies it to his literature, science, and everyday life very well. He also doesn't hate it and so he will probably continue to enjoy reading history articles in National Geographic and Smithsonian for the rest of his life. He did lots of projects, like making arrows. The children thought up their own. As they read, they would find something they wanted to try.

For geography, he travels, we listened to The Teaching Company's cultural anthropology tapes, and he will eventually do the colouring book recommended in TWTM.

For government, he is a peace activist, which gives him quite a bit of hands-on experience. We are listening to the TC government tapes Power to the People (or something like that). Hopefully somewhere along the lines he will read the Idiot's Guide (these work well as overviews). And he will read some of the foundation documents in great books. Reading The Republic (took us a whole fall) and discussing it also played into this. And he read the Uncle Eric books, three of them. I don't think he remembers much from Penny Candy.

For writing we've done a mix of things. We did Writing Strands 3-7, mostly. Then we did a punctuation workbook, a proofreading workbook, worked with Powerful Paragraphs and Jensen's Format Writing, and some other things. Mostly, I tried to have him write something every day. Considering that when I brought him home in 5th grade he cried when he had to write a sentence, I think he's doing great. His handwriting is awful, but I think it just is. Same with his spelling. Spelling books didn't seem to help, so I gave up and concentrated on teaching him some basic rules. This seemed to help a lot more than learning words. He did VfCR A+B. He liked this and I wish we could have continued, but there wasn't time. Latin will have to help him here. The workbooks, which might have been REM ones?, definately helped. There is an outline one, and a paragraphs one that if he had been younger when I found them I would have had him do. I thought he was a lamb to do the proofreading one at 16 without squawking.

For logic, he struggled through Introductory Logic. I now know that we are better off teaching logic through geometry in this family. The thinking skills are the same, I think. We did Fallacy Detective aloud together and that was very helpful.

I spent quite a lot of time getting him to speak coherently. We began with retelling folk tales and moved on to retelling Science News articles. Both were fun. The story telling has been a very useful skill, well worth the effort.

For English, we are doing great books with TWEM. If you search my past posts on the old board, you can find the details of that. This has been a major reason for his academic growth, I think. Doing it very slowly together actually works! You don't have to read tons of books to get results.

For science, he did MODG's Natural History Syllabus with extra reading and projects. Keeping a nature journal was great for him. So was trying to answer the questions about his reading. He got his ham license and did the anatomy, cell, and chemistry sections of Prentice Hall's Biology book. This is where he learned to read a section and answer textbook questions. He began by taking 2 hours to do a section and ended with taking 20 minutes. I thought the bio book was rather nice, but I got it at the dump swap shop so there might be better choices out there. He did The Anatomy Colouring Book and made up some experiments. We used the science museum's microscopes and did some activities. His gymnastics made him interested in anatomy and he suggested it.

For drawing, he did Draw Squad in the logic stage, then Artistic Pursuits and MODG's Natural History syllabus, then a CC class. I also let him draw instead of write a whole lot.

For music, we learned lots of sea chanties, did Patterns of Sound, and he is now taking piano lessons.

He does gymanstics.

And he peace walks.

And I think that is about it. The textbooks we've used aren't perfect (Jensen's is AWFUL) and I've had to adapt everything heavily, but they seem to have worked. Mostly, I've just adapted TWTM methods to suit us. That approach seems to have worked really well for him and taught me how to teach without having a spelled-out curriculum.

The experiment isn't over yet, though. I'll be able to tell you next Christmas much better how it all works out.

-Nan

[Jodi-FL]

many helpful comments were shared and I feel encouraged to keep on keeping on.

[Kris]

Jodi --

I just wanted to let you know that I asked a similar question on the old boards a few months ago. I was really frustrated that my son (9th grade) wasn't working more independently. I don't have the same problems that you do, as I only have the one child to work with, but I really was expecting him to work more to find his own answers before asking me.

I was reminded at that time (I'm sorry, I can't remember who posted it) that kids in PS still receive quite a bit of "hand holding" -- and I had forgotten that.

I know it seems that everyone here has really academic kids, but actually I think there's a good mix of those who are and those who struggle in one area or another -- otherwise these boards wouldn't be so busy. ;-) As a matter of fact, it was simply because everyone else's kids seemed to be doing so well that I wondered what the problem was, and asked the question in the first place.

He has really progressed since that time. We spend quite a bit of time working on his math, but other than that he is pretty much working independently now that he is used to the work he needs to do, and how it is expected to be done. I also started telling him to try to figure it out for himself while I finished up with this or that. Before long, most of the time, he found that he *could* do it himself.

We still spend a lot of time working on math together. But in the other areas, he seems to be able to work through it on his own now.

It may just be a matter of time, after she's had a chance to mature a little more and gain more confidence?

Another problem I think we had is that we were expecting too much of him at this age, and he was expecting too much, too. We had always had the problem in school that, if he didn't understand something, he wouldn't ask for help. As near as we could figure, he had been told for so long by us and his teachers that he was so smart -- somehow he got the idea that he was just supposed to already know everything and wasn't supposed to need help! We fought that battle for awhile too, and maybe he went too far the other way. But we seem to have reached a happy medium now.

HTH

(Now that I've said this, he'll probably forget everything tomorrow. <g>)

[Jodi-FL]

If I look back to how she did school last year, I do see some vast improvements, so maybe I am expecting too much too soon. It will definately take some tweaking of our schedule that is really working well, but it can be done for sure.

thanks,
jodi

[Beth in TN]

I have found this thread to be very helpful to me. My dd will officially be in high school next year and I've been using this year as a transition year for her. After reading the posts I realize that I may be expecting way more than she is able to do at this stage. Knowing that I can relax and scale back on my expectations really helps me too.

[Kris]

Jodi and Beth --

This is my realization also -- I'm just expecting too much too soon. I'm really working on it, but it still rears it's ugly head from time to time.

I was an ace in school, and that doesn't help at all. I just don't understand why he's not more like me. LOL!!

My folks weren't involved in my education because they didn't have to be. I much preferred to work on my own and I only really remember needing help one time -- when we moved from Oregon to California in fifth grade and I was *way* behind in math. My Dad spent every night for two weeks teaching me fractions. :-)

Of course, that was back in the good ol' days when we walked ten miles to school, in the snow, uphill both ways, fighting dinosaurs on the way. :-D

The other issue I have is focusing on what he's doing wrong, rather than what he's doing right, because it's what he's doing wrong that needs attention and takes up so much time. When I actually sit back and look at all that he's accomplished in the last two years, it really is amazing -- skills, attitude -- I am thrilled.

I just have to make sure he knows that. :-)

I want to wish you two the best of luck, but I don't think luck has anything to do with it. It's a lot of hard work, for us and our kids -- but it's definitely worth it.

But for lack of a better phrase, good luck! :-)

[Nan in Mass]

TWTM showed me how to take advantage of homeschooling's flexability in a way that works. It doesn't assume that my children will just naturally "get" how to write if they write occasionally, and things like that. It specifically teaches skills. And it isn't bound to textbooks for the other things. It showed me how to make up my own curriculum, one that suits each particular child, something very necessary, especially if you have one who isn't a whiz at the academics. Many of the specific recommendations in TWTM I'm not using, but the method is great for designing a not-too-much-work-for-the-parent, totally individualized education for your child.
-Nan