A very literal child!

[cirons]

Hello everyone!

Ok, so I am struggling with my dd9, only in that she is very literal. This affects her personal connections with the story time and poetry segments in Preparing where she is asked to think of a time (or story, verse, passage, experience) which these poems or stories remind her of. She gives me a blank stare every time! She is very black and white (unfortunately she gets that from me...lol) but over time at school, I learned what people wanted to hear, even though I didn't 'get it' or 'agree with it' and the connection I was supposed to make. I don't really want to encourage her to make it up, but how do you ask a child to make a personal connection to something when she 'feels' no connection or sees none that she can think of?

In every other area, she is improving in leaps and bounds! We have just had a small breakthrough in narrating, as she did not understand how she could ever re-tell me word for word some of the texts we read. I finally got through to her that it is the 'big picture' I want to hear, not necessarily every small detail. (Getting her to use connections in narrating is something we will get to one day, just not yet!!!)

Any ideas to get my dd to be more 'connected' to a piece???

Thanks ladies,

Corrie

[mamas4loves]

Hi!

My oldest dd is very literal as well and our first year with HOD was Preparing which was a couple of years ago. She is now in RTR. This year is when I noticed a huge improvement in narrations and more improvement in making connections. Our first year with HOD, I would also get a blank stare so I would remind her of incidents and ask her if she saw a connection and if she didn't (which was often), I would show her how the incidents and what she was reading had a connection. I guess I did a lot of modeling which seems to work very well in many areas of her learning. My only suggestions are to guide her thinking down the connection path through questions and modeling and give it time.

Hope this helps you in your HOD journey and many blessings on you today,
Jess

[cirons]

Thanks for your reply Jess! It is good to know you are seeing the fruits of your labour...maybe I just need to be more patient. To be honest, sometimes I find it hard to think of a connection too which makes it difficult to model, but I might need to put a bit more thought into it before we start our day so I have some ideas and questions ready to prompt her.

Thanks for your thoughts...

Blessings,

Corrie

[Carrie]

Corrie,

The ladies have done a great job of helping you already, so I'll just chime in with a response of mine to a past thread that was somewhat similar.
Link: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7447

I'll also share that the original poster in the thread updated her thread later with happy thoughts on some good progress! So, hang in there. It just takes time and some gentle prodding and discussing!

Blessings,
Carrie

[cirons]

Thanks Carrie....that link was helpful. My dd is a 'one right answer' kind of girl. I had to hold back my comments on her science experiment the other day and tell her I am not telling her whether she is right or wrong any more and this was weird for her (and me as I thought her conclusion was 'wrong') but after reading the threads about the reasoning behind the process, I will try and be more of a guide rather than a 'corrections officer'! Lol.

Blessings,

Corrie