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I am in a bit of confusion here. I absolutely love HOD's layout and vision. However, I have been struggling with teaching it to my Preparing student. She has always been "difficult" and I am in need of help discerning whether she is being defiant and not actually understanding the material and it's a communication of the material issue or she really isn't capable of thinking in this style. She is very literal, concrete, very booksmart. can memorize tons if she puts her mind to it, and a perfectionist. She does act "helpless" at times, and loves hand holding and really isn't very strong in critical thinking skills.
In particular, she really struggled with Singapore math introducing division skills before we had mastered multiplication. She literally could not move forward. She is great with dictation, ok with narration. Science experiment day is awful as she says she has No idea of a guess as to what/why . Art is almost unapproachable and Draw and Write thru history as she can't make it look like the book. Day 2 Creative Writing is very difficult for us- seems so abstract. She doesn't like Day 3 Bible study having specific prayers assigned. She has a very difficult time transport herself back to the storytime character on day 4. She can never come up with a connection to the readings in storytime. Not to mention we haven't even had time for DITHOR this year at all!
I know she is capable of learning SO much more but this -whatever "this" is- is holding us back. i Just want her to be able to think for herself- and want to. That's 1 of the main reasons we homeschool.
So. how can i differentiate between defiance and her genuinely not able to understand. She is SO literal and constantly brings out a power struggle in me because my patience for this is so low but i do need to find the root of the problem.
So. discipline ideas?
How can I incorporate more concrete stuff, i really don't love CM method, but I do love it only in HOD how Carrie lays it out.
Thanks again ladies.
God Bless your homeschool studies

Here are just my thoughts from reading your posts.You said she is a perfectionist, I have one of those also, I know my dd used to be afraid of making guesses at things because she was afraid to get the "wrong" answer. We worked with her on realizing that it is ok to guess, that scientists have always done that. I had to be careful not to shoot down any of her ideas that she might come up with. She would say things like "I don't know what they want". I had to tell her that they just wanted her to give a guess that there wasn't a right or wrong answer. Since most of us grew up in public school I think that is hard for us. We think there has to be only one right answer, but really with the science in Preparing there isn't. The goal is just to start to understand the scientific process. Many kids would rather just fill in worksheets because honestly that is easy. It requires no thinking, you just look back through the text and find the answer. However this doesn't prepare them for the type of deeper thinking they are required to do in middle school and beyond. Having one about to graduate and already taking college classes most of the work is things that she has to be able to discuss and support and think out of the box on. I think narration and the other things in HOD do such a great job of preparing students for this, but it is hard work on the students part. They have to be willing to take some "risks". That does come easier for some kids than it does for others. I hope that makes sense.

The creative writing is also the same way. There isn't a right way or wrong way to do it. I think it is important to give our kids encouragement just to start putting things down based on what they understand the instructions to be. I will gently guide in a direction and may give some ideas to get them started, but then I try really hard to not shoot down their ideas. I am a pretty concrete thinker myself and I know this can be hard to do.

As far as attitude I have come to realize that my attitude makes or breaks the day. If I go into things with a positive attitude then things go much better. My ds struggles with writing and on the days the Creative Writing program is scheduled in the guide he is doing now I can tend to start to dread it. I realized that effects his attitude. Now I try to go in with a more positive mind set and that makes a big difference.

I know I really struggled for a time trying to figure out whether our difficulties were discipline related, or frustration stemming from not understanding. I still don't really have it figured out, but for my dd (whom has always been a bit on the strong willed side; I was just sure our struggles were completely because of her attitude ) I finally realized that much of it was just because she didn't get what they were asking. Someone advised me to model what was needed (narrations were our struggle, but it would work with Science); and to plan on doing that for as long as needed-months if necessary. At first I struggled with the thought of trying that because I felt like it was just giving in to her laziness, but decided to give it a whirl. I read the assignment outloud then handed her the manual to ask me the questions. I think we did it for about 2 weeks when she was suddenly jumping in to fill in blanks that I'd missed, and then to give the narration before I could start. It helped tremendously. I was told to think of it as a public school classroom setting where it's okay if a kid doesn't know every single answer that the teacher is asking of them, they just don't raise their hands and can listen as their classmate gives a "model" of the answer. Eventually they begin to figure out what the teacher's looking for and can try it themselves.

I'm with Mom23
Model model model tho we like to do I do one she does one, back n forth.
For the Art why not get her some parchment paper and let her trace it. Also sit with her and draw it with her oh wait her back at model, model, model.
to transition her away from tracing later on. Ask her to imagine where the line should be. Then add dots so she can connect them and "see" it. You can read Drawing with Children to help you help her.