Homeschooling the ADHD Child
Great Ideas!
NOTICE: The following posts are taken from the Christian ADHD Homeschoolers List. The names, e-mail
addresses and locations of all parties involved have been
removed to protect their privacy. The posts have been used
with permission, but are copyrighted by ADHD of the Christian
Kind.
I finally bit the bullet and ordered the wooden blocks for Handwriting
Without Tears along with the play-do set, workbook, mat, letter cards, and
TM.
Today I spent a little time introducing the wooden blocks to my 5yo. We
were following along with the TM and polishing the blocks while learning
their names. My 5yo put his polishing cloth down and decides he wants to
make a rainbow. I expected him to just stand up one of the big curved
pieces on the couch. No, he took two curved pieces and made a circle. I
asked him how he knew that was the shape of a rainbow. He took another
curved piece and put it on the couch and said, "Most people think this is a
rainbow." I was amazed that he knew this. I didn't teach this to him.
Maybe he got it listening to one of his brothers read their books at bedtime
(sometimes they will read to the 5yo from some Creation science books, which
they all love).
My 9yo knew that a rainbow is not half a circle, but a full circle as well.
I was impressed.
BTW, my kids spent another 30 minutes making all kinds of complicated
shapes, faces, and objects from these blocks. I had to make the older
children go back to their own work.
When I got out the balance scale and centimeter blocks to do a little math
discovery with my 5yo, the kids again had to converge. They ended up
pulling out my digital scale and comparing the weights with the balance
scale.
My 5yo has been a very happy child the rest of the day. He got plenty of my
attention, and everyone else's attention, and learned plenty.
I sure wish I could teach all of my children using this discovery/hands-on
method. I know they would be so happy with it. Maybe I do need to
transition to Math U See. I will wait and continue to adapt Saxon K and 1 to
my son's needs. He cannot read or write yet, so we have to tread lightly.
I learn so much from this group because of sharing!
As this is my first experience with homeschooling and trying to find out how
my 5 yr old adhd son learns best, I have gained some great insight from this
group. Although I am concentrating on reading and writing right now, I am
learning that reading is going great, but writing is a chore. He has a
difficult time with thinking he needs to write just like mommy, despite me
constantly reassuring him that it takes time and practice to get the shapes
the way they need to be.
I am using the book "Teaching your child to read in 100 lessons" and he is
always looking forward to the new sounds and his reading is amazing, it is
when we need to practice the writing that we struggle. I found a large pad
of paper (2'x3' about) and this has helped him to feel free to write big,
but we end up with a lot of scribbling and marking over things he doesn't
like.
Handwriting:
Here are a few suggestions. Use a white board, chalk board, the air, sand, rice or any other item that will allow him large movements. Writing is often the most difficult thing to get down. My almost 8 yr old is still struggling so we switched to cursive which she is doing much better in.
Reading:
I was looking for stamping projects and came across these beautiful sight
word charts:
http://www.janbrett.com/games/jan_brett_dolch_word_list_main.htm
LOGIC:
Thoughts on teaching our kids logic? I know some
curricula, especially classical education curricula,
emphasize teaching logic once the child is probably
at about 7th or 8th grade. Does anyone do this?
What texts have you found helpful?
Excellent question. I teach logic, and have some
ideas:
- As with anything else, teach by example. Steer
conversations (and therefore thinking) into logical
patterns. For example, let them see and hear you
think out loud, help them follow a chain of reasoning,
etc. Point out errors in reasoning (with charity and
gentleness, not with superiority or insensivity).
This "home example" can start at any age; the younger
the better.
- Don't make the common (and mistaken) assumption
that logic and creativity are mutually incompatible.
If you have one artistic kid and one analytical kid,
that's great! Encourage them all to be smart in more
than one area of the brain.
- Curriculum: The text I've heard about most often
is _Fallacy Detective_ by Bluedorn. If I recall
correctly, it deals almost exclusively with informal
fallacies. People also talk about
_Introduction_To_Logic_ by Copi. That's
college-level, especially in the reading level.
- Remember that logic has several branches. Do you
want to talk about mathematical logic? symbolic logic?
rhetorical logic? nonstandard logics? etc. If you
don't know what these are, you'll probably want to
stick to rhetorical logic.
- Encourage, by your example, informal "debates" in
home conversations.
- Help your kids to learn that the point of logic is
to think clearly, not to beat down somebody with whom
you disagree.
CLASSICAL EDUCATION:
I have two ds's with ADHD. We are attempting using the Classical Trivium.
Is anyone else doing this and what results have they had? SO far is is going
pretty well, except we haven't done Latin yet and my youngest HATES writing.
I began with Classical homeschooling, specifically the Veritas Press curriculum. I was impressed by it, and I still believe it is great, but it was too much for my son. This year I modified his curriculum substantially to be much more like "regular school", although I still teach him Latin and will probably work in other things from the classical model as he gets older (such as logic). If it works for you guys, that is great. I think, for us, it was not necessarily the the model of education but the curriculum itself which was too difficult for him. All I knew was that he was struggling very much and time was passing by.
However, according to the Classical models that I have seen, the subject of science is put off until about 7th grade. I was going to keep up with that, but this year I really decided he needed it. Why? Because finding things that interest him and drive him to succeed is hard enough. It is a real challenge for him to have any interest in academics at all -except for science! The least I could do was throw in a subject that he really loves.
We have always done science, they do it every day in fact. They really like
it also, we don't have time for lots of experiments though. Since they like
it so much I really don't have to worry about them not knowing science. We
have been trying the Well Trained Mind approach. I don't use everything they
say (although sometimes I think that's be easier, but its more expensive so
out of the question right now) We have been going with their history
approach (plus 3 additional books I bought to go with it, timelines, atlas and a
complete historical fiction-like book) We use CD ROMs for math and english
(grammar/spelling) which they really like. But having to write papers/ stories/
summaries they really don't like it. Does any kid?
Probably not. When kids (or even us) begin to like writing is when a) it becomes easier for us to express what we want to say, and b) we actually like expressing what we want to say in writing. The first one is a challenge for ADHD kids right off the bat, my son especially. It adds a challenge to having kids learn to write anyway. As you know, ADHD kids have a number of obstacles in addition to what "normal" kids face that really eclipse any benefit of writing (at least that they can see). I try to make it as painless as possible for my son by having him write on subjects that will interest him, but it just is reality that he will have to write (and read) things that concern topics not particularly interesting. He has to see that there is a value to struggling through it. Young kids usually don't appreciate the real value of it (being a good communicator, for example), so I believe we need to give them other incentives while underscoring and demonstrating the blessedness of a
careful and thoughtful communicator who uses language as a tool for God's glory.
Soli Deo Gloria! :)
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