How to teach this

[waverly]

DS received "not meeting" in the following areas on his report card:

Time management, organization, and taking initiative as a learner.  He is described as not having perseverance.  I don't have it in front of me, so I can't remember the exact phrasing.

I think the time management is referring to him reading books in math class for example instead of doing math.  Which the teacher has talked to him about.  She really hasn't cracked down on his though because he is doing something educational, but I think probably she needs to. 

The teacher does a desk map for his organization.  

How am I supposed to teach these or enforce these at home?

We do have him clean his room at home.  His personality tends to be more clueless type, so he needs more direct instruction and steps.  He doesn't necessarily intuit things which I would take as him not taking initiative as a learner.  For example, at home he does not intuit that he needs to clean his room and just do it or intuit that he is dirty so he should shower.  Nor do I know when that would start happening.  He just turned 8.  In my experience most kids still need to be told these kinds of things.  But he is emerging as not being super responsible, and we always have to double check his work both chores and school.  Although he has been getting better, and I have been teaching him to re-check his homework.    

At home he is on top of the time, and when things happen and worried about being late.  I wonder if he isn't like that in school because he doesn't feel like he needs to be.  Like he doesn't seem to know exactly when gym happens. He just knows early afternoon after lunch before 1:30 he thinks.   

The difference between the 2 kids of even me versus DS is that if I had homework I completed it before school ends.  DD does it at aftercare.  DS refuses to do it at aftercare and does it at home.  It's his choice, and maybe he wants to do it with me, but I think it is maybe the procrastination/ time management/ taking initiative that the teacher is talking about.  

He actually does take initiative in things he likes, but I guess not stuff at school.  He described it as not doing his best work.  ETA- Also spelling I think is an issue.  They don't do spelling lessons though and do Words Their Way, which he knows all of them, but those are not the same words he is misspelling.  And I am not aware that they have a reference for him to look up words, so it seems like they are assessing differently here than instructing.  

[186momx]

Those are hard. I would ask the teacher to stop letting him read during math class especially if he hasn't done the math work and homework. I would also ask the teacher if you could come up with a to do check off list for school and see if that helps with his time management. It would also show him what comes next in the day so after math we move to reading so I need to get my levelled reader ready when I finish all the math.
Also could you just require him to do homework at aftercare. I told DD she had to do homework club. It is a choice at aftercare but I didn't give her a choice and explained it as some days we don't have tons of extra home time to sit and do homework plus if she needs help with anything she can get it at aftercare either by the staff or by the older kids.

I know for DD she is really bored at school so we had to work out incentives for her to do her class work. Her incentives are challenging math sheets, LOL.

[greenmonkey1]

I would probably start by asking the teacher for examples of behavior from which she is deriving the assessment of "not meeting" those specific areas. That information may give you a better idea of how to tackle the issues at home.

DS1 (KDG), for example, will help his peers during bell work and not get his own bell work done. That is a totally different issue of time management from a kiddo who is talking or another kiddo who is daydreaming. Reading books during math sounds like something the teacher needs to address. I agree that at least he is engaging academically, but if it is math time, then it is math time. That to me seems more on the teacher than your son. At age 8 your DS probably knows he shouldn't be reading during math time, but a kid that age will still take advantage of the teacher not telling him to put it away. I can see my nephew (age 8) telling my sister that his teacher didn't tell him to put the book away so he didn't think it was a problem.

Perseverance is another tricky one. Does the teacher mean your DS gives up when it gets hard or he just does the minimum? Either issue I think just take constant reminders and lots of opportunity to practice at home. My DS likes to build Legos so I use building his Lego sets as an example of sticking with something when it gets hard.

I'd probably want some examples from the teacher as well as her suggestions for working on the issues at home.

[waverly]

Yeah I agree with you both. The teacher should crack down on non essential reading. He is doing great in reading. What he is not doing great in is focusing on what he needs to be doing, so she should enforce that more.

The homework doesn't bother me when he does it. It was just an example of him not taking initiative. If it is because he wants to do it with me, I don't want to take that away from him. But if I do need to set a hard rule, I will.


I think in some cases he does the minimum. For example, with his writing the teacher and I are constantly having him re-do things because he is doing the minimum (and we can't read it). Great idea to use Lego building for perseverance. I think we unwittingly tend to make things easier on him, and maybe at home need to take it up a level. Like he was wilting like a flower with tiredness while doing dishes, and yes he had a very busy day and was actually tired and went right to bed, but we can't step in and help him too much when things are hard. Some times he has to push through it and deal with it.

[twinmomma]

DD2 struggles with staying focused, following multi-step directions, and working on things that she doesn't want to do vs. what she likes to do.

I will make check lists for her to help her follow the steps and stay focused on the end piece. We are huge on specific routines too. She doesn't do anything until her backpack is put away, folder is on the counter, lunchbox is in it's spot, etc... I might have to ask 1,000 times, but she knows nothing else happens until those steps are done. Maybe making more explicit routines would help?

At school, her teacher helps her set "personal goals" to get her to focus on what she needs to. For example, she focused really well on her writing journal for a couple days, so she got to read aloud to the class, which is something she loves. Their school is big on "Growth Mindset" so setting personal goals for things she "can't do YET" is a huge part of their curriculum. Could you help him and work with the teacher on something like that?

[waverly]

We are big on routines here too. I also have a morning checklist and we do the exact same thing every night.

Perhaps he needs a check list for school though since that seems to be the main issue.

The teacher has him set up with writing goals with computer time as the reward, and they do the growth mindset.

He claims it was from the beginning of the year and he is getting better. That could be true as 2nd was a big shock to him, I think. We have talked about some of these things, I guess I just didn't realize that they were so bad to be a never meets as opposed to a sometimes meets.  Maybe I need to enforce the reading at home as well.  Like no reading unless it is reading time...

[traveltheworld]

DS (6.5) got "not meeting" in some of the same areas on his report card. I think you need to first figure out what exactly is required for each of those categories, then you can come up with a plan. Here's what we did:

On "organization" - we found that he was lacking in being able to keep his desk organized, pack up his bag without forgetting stuff, etc.; so we are making him practice that more at home. We no longer pack his lunch or school bag for him. We sat down and wrote little posters of what needs to go into his lunch bag and backpack, taped those on the fridge and mud room, and he is wholly responsible for getting that done in the mornings.

On "time management" - we use Google Home to and taught him how to set alarms. E.g. if he has soccer practice and needs to be out of the house at 5:45, then Google Home tells him when it's 15 minutes, and another 5 minute warning. If he is late, we don't bail him out. He is late. I'm not sure if it helped with school time management, but he seemed to have gotten better overall.