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This may sound like a strange question to ask. Let me explain:
Both my son and my younger daughter are gifted students in certain areas. My son, age 15, encountered some subjects this past school year that were difficult for him. One of those subjects was math, and the other was science. Part of the problem was that he’s not particularly interested in either of these subjects. The other part of the problem was that, because learning has always come so easily to him, he was totally unprepared to deal with it when these subjects became a challenge for him. He has always managed to do well without really studying until now, so he was a little upset when he began making unsatisfactory grades.
The same thing happened to my younger daughter. She’s 9 and just completed 4th grade. She too has always learned easily and never had to really study. This past year she had some trouble with her Spanish class. The class was absolutely not too difficult for her. But since she knows very little about Spanish she, for the first time in her school “career,” really had to study to learn it.
When my children began making low grades in these subjects and started saying they didn’t like these subjects, I was confused at first. They had always done well, and we were all caught off guard when their grades began slipping. (To be honest, we don’t really do “grades” much in my homeschool. But it’s so much easier to use that term rather than explain how I assess their progress orally and sometimes through written work. My point is that they weren’t learning as much or as well as they had previously, which became a concern.)
I met with each child one-on-one to try to figure out what was going wrong this year. Was the material really too difficult? Was there some other problem? My children assured me that the material was just too difficult. As I began questioning them, though, I realized that the problem was that they were no longer able to learn without studying. They honestly didn’t know how to study because they’d never had a need to do it before! They didn’t even know that they needed to study. And they certainly didn’t know how to study.
In high school (where I met my husband, Scott), I remember that Scott never had to study. He read things or heard things and just remembered them. I, on the other hand, had to study to learn things. I never had to study really hard, but I definitely did have to study and put some effort into it. Because of my own experiences, it didn’t occur to me that not having to study could actually cause problems!
I explained this to my children so they would know what was going on. They hesitantly agreed that my assessment was probably correct. Neither of them was too thrilled, though, because that meant they were going to have to learn to study! They knew that they couldn’t always avoid subjects that were difficult for them and that they had to learn to study, but they still didn’t know how to go about it.
While it is a wonderful blessing to have children who learn easily, the fact is that they have to learn to study. I will continue this post on Wednesday, and I’ll share with you some of the things we’ve discovered about learning to study. In the mean time, I’d love to hear some tips and pointers from those of you who have taught your children to study!
Wendy lives in the South with her wonderful hubby and 3 great kiddos! She is a Christian, homeschooling, work-from-home mom. She and Scott were high school sweethearts and have been married for more than 20 years. Her oldest child has autism, and Wendy began homeschooling her at age 2. Her son, a typical boy, would rather do anything than school! Her youngest child is a little social butterfly and people lover. Wendy loves reading and quilting and will hopefully return to scrapbooking some time soon. You can visit her personal blog at Homeschooling Blessings.
What a timely reminder this article is! I never had to study until I went to university and it was BRUTAL! Quite the shock. I still can’t believe I didn’t fail my first year. This is a great reminder to me to teach my children this important skill BEFORE the risk of “failing” or before they get just downright frustrated.
Thanks for your comment, Rebecca! I think that is a wonderful idea and will probably help save your children (and yourself!) from lots of frustration later on.
What a great topic! I am just starting my journey with a 3 year old so we are playing more than studying but I’m so interested to log this away for later.
Cindy, that’s great! I wish I had known more when I was first starting out. I hope this information comes in handy and helps you on your homeschool journey! In the mean time, have fun playing and learning.
I absolutely agree with your assessment. My oldest daughter [because of other issues she was dealing with] underwent a variety of tests and one of them showed she was really gifted. She behaves exactly as you’ve described. As long as she can catch on to something easily, she does great. The very minute she hits a challenge she falls apart. My goal for the past several years has been to teach her how to study and overcome challenges, but it is a long, hard road for her.
Anaise, I’m so sorry to hear about your daughter’s trouble! It really is very stressful for both the child and the mom/teacher. I hope that, since you know what the problem is now, perhaps she can understand and begin to learn to handle it better. It is definitely a long hard road!
I know where your children are coming from. I have always been “gifted” and, like your husband, I just absorbed things. I think it was college before I had to study. I remember HATING physics in high school because it required me to work. I’d never experienced that before. I told my chemistry teacher that I would never do anything in science or math, I was a history/English kinda girl. Last year, 10 years after graduating high school, I finished my BS in physics with a minor in math. It wasn’t easy, but I found that I like the challenge I hated so much in high school (I was a public school kids, btw). Keep with them and you’ll see them do excellent things. Let them know that even though they may hate the subjects now, it may become their chose field of study after high school. You never know! ;oD
Kristen, thanks so much for your comment! I will absolutely tell my kiddos about this! I’m glad to know that you were able to begin to enjoy being challenged. I’m hoping that, by teaching my kids good study skills, they too will learn to enjoy a challenge instead of feeling frustrated and giving up.
Yes, we’ve had experiences like that too. Sometimes the material was too hard, sometimes too easy, and sometime the kids just needed to learn how to learn. I wrote about it a few years ago: http://anniekateshomeschoolreviews.com/2010/05/overwhelmed-under-challenged-unmotivated-disobedient-or-just-plain-lazy/
There’s also a neat free resource that has helped our older ones understand more about studying and learning. They loved it! http://thecurriculumchoice.com/2011/12/how-to-raise-your-high-school-grades-by-half-a-point-in-one-semester/
I hope these thoughts help.
Annie Kate, thanks for sharing your information and links! I’m going to take a look at both your post from a few years ago and the studying/learning resource too. I’m surely hoping that my kids will understand more about this and will begin to enjoy being challenged.
Looking forward to reading more about this. We are having a similar experience. Thanks!
Pam, I’m sorry that you are having a similar experience because it’s really not fun! I hope that by learning more about the problem and more about teaching your children good study skills your situation will improve greatly! Be sure to take a look at Wednesday’s post which will give more information on helping your children develop good study skills.
Thank you so much for this! I have had this problem myself, and with my children. I wonder if you know about the research of Dr. Carol Dweck? She wrote a book called Mindset, which discusses this exact problem.
I think it’s a wonderful lesson to learn how to learn — and I love the way you have written about this. I want to add a link, that happens to be from my own blog (I don’t usually do that, but hope it is okay in this case) that talks about Carol Dweck and her ideas — I’d love to know what you think!!
http://blog-i-school-at-home.care2read.com/2012/06/20/mindset-carol-dwecks-research-pays-off/
Wendy, I do not know about Dr. Dweck and her research! I’m going to try to find her book. It sounds like it would be a great resource! Thanks so much for mentioning it.
I don’t mind your posting a link to your blog at all! In cases where readers are sincerely interested in leading other readers to helpful information (as opposed to “advertising”) it is perfectly fine to post your link.
Thank you for sharing this information!
Oh, awesome!! I just love Carol Dweck…if you are interested, she’s a professor at Stanford, and her work is on her website. We have definitely noticed an enthusiasm for learning in our house that I think is a result of knowing that if you practice, you will improve.
My only problem is that *I’m* not fully on board because of how I was raised : ) I keep catching myself thinking I can’t do something “because I’m not good at it” never thinking to myself that maybe, if I practiced, I’d get better and “be good at it” : )
Ah, well…we’re all learning all the time, aren’t we?
Yes, we sure are! That’s one of my favorite things about homeschooling–learning along with my children. Sometimes we have to stretch ourselves and get out of our “comfort zones” just like they do!
Looking forward to the next part Wendy
Thanks, Louanne! I hope it’s helpful.
Can’t wait to read the next post too! I never had to study much either and really struggling in how to teach my children to study. I assume they should just get it. So I am always looking for new ways to help them. Thanks for a great post!
You are welcome! I’m glad you enjoyed the post. I hope you’ll come back to read the one for tomorrow about teaching study skills. Maybe it will be helpful to you as well.
Wendy, you might also want to teach them that intelligence is not innate. I started teaching my students about intelligence as an intro each year. I’ve done some research and found that a lot of U.S. kids think that intelligence is innate, so when something is hard it obviously means that they just aren’t able to do it. (I think girls are especially likely to believe this) I had to talk about effort and practice leading to intelligence. I had to train myself to stop saying you’re smart (and I don’t with my one year old) and start clarifying what they did well (you must have practiced writing that to get it to look so good or wow, all those hours you spent on the problems really shows in how quickly you finished). Here’s some basic research info I found on great website: http://www.parentingscience.com/theory-of-intelligence.html
Good luck with this journey!
And this article is great too! http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/04/what-kids-should-know-about-their-own-brains/
Great article! I was never a studier at school, I remembered everything and flew through exams easily. But both of my children have ASD so their learning has been a bit different. We don’t do exams but we do a lot of ‘disguised’ study via discussion, TED Talks and visual note taking practices. My son is unable to write so I spent a lot of time researching different learning practices and discussion, visual note taking and teaching others were the best options.
For us it’s worked really well but like everything it is so individual to each child isn’t it?
Ellie, thanks for your comment! Yes, one of my very favorite things about homeschooling is the ability to teach/evaluate each child in a way that fits that child. I have an autistic child, and the way I “do school” with her is very different from how I do it with my other 2 children. I don’t know about visual note taking. I’ll have to look into that and see what it is. My autistic daughter is non-verbal and can’t write either (She has extremely poor motor skills.), so I’m wondering if that might be something useful for her.