Drawing the line

[Sasharowan]

How do you decide where the line is between challenging your child and too hard? For instance: I was reading Nancy Drew type books at 6yo in 1st grade. My ds12 was about 9 reading Nancy Drew and now reads anything I read as long as I ok the book. Maturity, not vocabulary is the deciding factor. My dd8(almost 9) is reading small chapter books now,just started this year. My ds 7 is still in the Bob books stage. My dh is not a very big reader, but when he does read, it is stuff like Hawkings, or Freud.

Anyway, my dd8 is showing signs of boredom with school (I know part of it is the end of the year), but I don't want to ramp up too hard and frustrate her. My ds12 can and needs to do more work (esp. writing) and fights me on every little thing I add that is more than he did in 1st grade. He does it out of fear of change(a problem he has dealt with since he was little) and that makes it hard for me to tell if it is his fear or frustration from too hard material.

Long story short: How do you decide where the line is between too hard and just challenging material?

Thanks:bigear:

[Academy of Jedi Arts]

Too hard is when the kid just can not learn the material. Either it is too much or too complicated- whatever reason- you see the kid putting the time and effort into trying, but they just can not get it. Challenge means they might have to work a little harder, but they get it.

Pre-testing is a great thing. It enables you to skip over what your kids already know and find a good instructional level for them. Challenge level is just a step or two above the child's instructional level. I would advise mixing things up throughout the day between instructional and challenge level. With a reluctant kid, I might even through in a few easy things here and there just to build confidence. One thing to avoid at all costs is busy work, though. There is nothing that will turn a kid off quicker than having to write out answers to questions he doesn't care about and already knows the answer to.

If they are balking at any work at all, I would suggest having them tested to see if there are any underlying causes as to why. Sometimes a kid who appears lazy simply has some kind of learning disability.

[8FillTheHeart]

An easy way to approach this is incrementalism. You start where you know for a fact they have mastery. Then gradually increase level/difficulty week to week. Huge leaps are going to cause confusion/frustration.

If you assign a book, make the next one slightly more difficult. If you keep it the same approximate level, increase the number of pages needed to be read by 1 or 2, etc.