struggles with dd and Bigger

[mom23]

I really hope that I'm able to form my jumbled thoughts into something that makes sense to all of you-sorry if it's going to be hard to understand .

My dd9 started bigger mid-summer and we're currently on Unit 18. She's doing alright with it, but just not thriving. I noticed the same issues with Beyond last year. Actually, that's what really opened my eyes to this being an issue. When I began Beyond last week with my ds7, it was with some trepitation because it did not flow well, or really seem to click with our family last year when I began HOD trying to combine he and his sister in Beyond. It quickly became apparent to me that it was not a good placement for ds, and we backed up to LHFHG. That went so well with him. His sister stayed in Beyond, but just struggled. Our day just seemed to stretch out forever. The material was not difficult for her, but she was plodding through it as though it were. When I would read things aloud to her she could not give any sort of feedback about what we had just read. It seemed to take us forever to do these things, and then I began having some issues with my eyes, along with morning sickness when it was time for her school; I finally let her take over reading her own History and Science, and she began to do much better. Was understanding what she read, and could carry on a conversation about it; but still, her day was much longer and more difficult than it needed it be.

Fast forward to now-Beyond is going WONDERFULLY with ds7-we're loving it! Bigger for dd is much the same scenerio as Beyond was. She has been handling much of her work independently-history/science readings, notebooking, poetry, hymns, etc. Basically all we do together are Math, grammar, and dictation. However, it takes so long for her to complete, and I fear she's skimming over things, or slapping them together. This week, after experiencing how smoothly these guides can go I determined to sit with her for all of her day and guide her through it. I'm timing how long it takes us to complete each box, and it's much less time than she uses while on her own. I'm finding she wastes so much time getting distracted-wanting to talk about other things. When I read something to her it does not seem like she's paying any attention. Today she was supposed to orally narrate her science back and all she said was, "It was about leaves." It was not about leaves at all-that was simply the last picture that we'd looked at. It was really about Spring, and preparations that birds and moths have to go through before colder weather hits again. We also talked in detail about the mushroom picutre at the bottom, only mentioning what poison ivy looked like from that picture at the top. When all I got was her half-attempt at saying something about leaves, but nothing about the rest of it, I pushed her for more, and she stonewalled, then exploded in frustration, "I can't explain it!" I ended up re-reading the assignment (I know that's a no-no for narration, but I didn't know what else to do.) We talked through all the details again and went on to something else. Another major struggle we're having is Bible. She does not seem to get the connections between the character qualities and the passages we're reading. She gives simple non-answers for questions that are not related to what was asked at all. Today, for example, she read the definition of "optimistic" as requested, but then could not explain back to me what it meant. She gives generic answers to questions like, "God", or "read the Bible" when they have nothing to do with what was asked.

I know this curriculum is not too hard for her. In fact, I think she would place in Preparing if I were looking at the chart to begin HOD today. Her reading and writing skills are great. She learned cursive last year, along with doing Bigger's R&S and dictation last year. I've wondered if it's too easy, and she's bored and not willing to try? I do think she's learning, but I know she's not overly challenged. Maybe it's all attitude? I hope this makes some sense! Thanks for hanging in there and reading to the end . Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Becky

[amysconfections]

Bigger is not meant to be totally independent. I would step back and do all the reading to her again. Have her work on her narration. Work on the attitude. Expect distraction of a certain amount because she has siblings doing really fun things. Most kids just want to break away from work and play. It's harder when they have younger siblings doing this and they are stuck working. Maybe provide rewards that are natural for hard work. Maybe have a break time that she gets to play outside if she is done with x amount of work. If not, she stays in while you have your pe time. Maybe work on some things at night instead of during your school day. When my children do their best work for handwriting, DITHOR workbook, math, etc., they get scratch and sniff stickers that they put on their workbook covers. They love to see how many they get. I don't give them for sloppy work though.

To help start narration pick out a few key words. Put them on paper or white board and say "Tell back to me what happened using these words in your narration."

Hope this helps!

[my3sons]

BHFHG has always been a key year for my dc to learn time management skills, as well as for them to learn many, many new skills. It is a key teaching year for me. I can see that your dd is a good reader and writer, and very capable, which may make it seem like she should be able to do BHFHG quite independently. However, as the pp mentioned, BHFHG intends for a good portion of the guide to be completed together, as teacher and student. By the good research you have done of doing it more alongside her already, you've been able to see this very thing - she will do better and it will begin to take less time if you take back the parts that are intended to be done together. It honestly took pretty much all year of working with each of my sons in BHFHG for them to gain the skills intended to be learned in the guide. I think you have a good idea to use the timer, and work alongside dd in an encouraging way to help her learn these skills the remainder of the year. I know it seems to take more time to teach more like this, but it actually takes less time in the long run. I'm glad you figured this out now, and I really think you are going to be able to enjoy the rest of the year more now together knowing that is the intention of the BHFHG guide, and not something within your dd that is indicating she is unable to do the guide. Hugs - and HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[LynnH]

Along with what Julie said I would add that narration is a learned skill. For some kids it comes more naturally than for others. When my ds was 10 we started Preparing and he gave narrations much like you are seeing with your dd. I broke up the readings into smaller chunks and had him narrate over a smaller portion. If he was really stuck I would give him a beginning and see if he could continue on. I also modeled narrations for him according to the appendix. Sometimes I would ask him to act out what the reading had been about. This really helped him. Now in RTR he does much better. In fact when he starts a narration he now thinks it is funny to just say "It was about a boy", because he knows that is how he used to do them. This has been a 3 year process though of me being right there with him and teaching him how to do them.

[psreit]

Narration is difficult for my dd, unless i give her prompts. We will begin Bigger in the fall and I will probably still be doing a lot of prompting. She has good comprehension, but her mind is usually stuck on something near the end and then I have to take her back to the beginning and ask questions about what was read in the order it was read. My dd is also very distractible, and we don't even have younger children here. I often tell her that if she just keeps her mind on it, she will get her work done sooner. Like yesterday, I was reading our storytime book. I asked her something about what we read and her answer was about the birds she was watching out the window. I asked her if she heard what I read and she said she did. She probably did, but it drives me crazy sometimes, because I'm not sure. I will just take a break if she's not on task. I know this isn't much help, but I guess I basically just wanted to encourage you to stay on the path. It will get better. I have seen my dd make progress. So, I'm just going to keep working at it and anticipate more progress.

[mom23]

Thanks for all of the different suggestions on narrations-I've never thought to try writing down some key words for her to use, or to break it into smaller chunks of reading. I will keep persuing this...patiently ...and hopefully be able to help her develop these skills.

Thanks also, Amy and Julie, for the advice to continue to work with her through the rest of the guide. I have to admit, that was not the advice I wanted to hear , because-you're right-it sounds like it's going to take much more teaching time. With LHTH and Beyond both being completely teacher-led I'm not sure how I'm going to take on completely leading Bigger as well . I can definitely appreciate your experiences, though, and see with the guide being designed that way, that I'm probably expecting too much of her. This is not going to be easy for either of us, as she is a very independent type of child, and often resents my heavy involvement. Do you have suggestions for how to make this smoother with that in mind? How do I guide her through the entire thing without making her feel resentful?

[Tidbits of Learning]

I know this curriculum is not too hard for her. In fact, I think she would place in Preparing if I were looking at the chart to begin HOD today. Her reading and writing skills are great. She learned cursive last year, along with doing Bigger's R&S and dictation last year. I've wondered if it's too easy, and she's bored and not willing to try? I do think she's learning, but I know she's not overly challenged. Maybe it's all attitude? I hope this makes some sense! Thanks for hanging in there and reading to the end . Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Becky

My children need to be challenged or they are going to give me poor work and attitude. If you have been through Beyond and most of Bigger and she is just plodding through, then I would be concerned. Did you originally place her in Beyond so that she could combine with her younger brother? When you look at Bigger this year, do you think...she could have done this last year? If that is the case, then I would give Preparing a try. I would honestly take a good hard look at the placement chart and pretend that I was coming to HOD brand new and that my child had not done any previous guides and see where she placed. That would be the most telling answer as to whether it would be best to adjust her placement.
I had done Beyond with my kids combined last year. My oldest was going to do something else this year. My dd10 wanted to continue HOD. I thought Preparing Hearts would be a good start since the only reason she did Beyond was to be combined with a younger sibling. We started and got about a week in when I realized that she was just going through the motions. I debated for a few days and I printed the placement chart and started honestly looking at each individual aspect on the boxes and circled where my dd placed. I was surprised to realize that she placed in CTC this year. We are a bit into CTC now and I am really glad that I didn't just keep us going through the motions.
If it were me, I wouldn't want to go through another year of just plodding through. I do believe placement is the key and if your child is placed too low it can mess with your school day as much or worse than if you misplace them too high. I am curious if you do the placement chart again, where your dd would place right now.

[mom23]

Thank you, Tidbits! I did go through the placement chart and she placed squarely in Preparing...this thought does make me nervous, because of some of the struggles we're having now, but I do see what you're saying with challenging our kids adequately. That has been a persistent, niggling thought in the back of my mind-all last year, in fact, that I wished we were doing the next guide up. Yes, you're right-the only reason I put her in Beyond last year was to try combining her with her younger brother. I absolutely cannot figure out now why I did not see this stuff then, and move her up to Bigger when I moved her brother down to Little Hearts. At the time, I already had Bigger on hand! I don't have Preparing right now...

My two areas of concern: Bible and the written narrations. With Bible, she's just not clicking with Bigger. We were discussing it tonight, and she tells me that it's too hard. They make it boring. I just can't do it. When I go through it with her, I don't see anything too hard, I just see her not trying! I feel like we're hitting the same wall with narrations-I don't see her trying. When she was doing this guide independently she would regularly come to me as I was cooking, or anything else, even before I could ask for a narration and just simply pour out what she'd just read. Faboulous evidence that she'd processed what she had read and was excited about it. As I began to get less and less of that, and more recently none of it, I started to get concerned with her just coasting by, and decided to sit down with her to do it. When we do it together, she just shuts down. I was trying to figure out tonight whether this is an attitude problem that I'm seeing in all areas of life, or just with school. While there are definitely issues that need addressing in other areas, it seemed to me that our worst struggles are in school time. Part of me dreads the thought of fighting to get more out of her, but part of me really resonates with what you have shared.

I'm praying this through, and will talk to my husband about it.

[Tidbits of Learning]

My two areas of concern: Bible and the written narrations.

I believe that written narrations are worked on in Preparing and that there is a starter prompt for the narrations to jump start the wheels turning in your child's mind. My kids don't intuitively draw conclusions from the Bible verses. My 9 yr old often throws out answers such as God or the Bible or listen to God when he doesn't understand language from the verse itself. I am not particular about versions of the Bible. I know many choose a particular print of the Bible. I have found that having KJV, NIV, NRSV prints of the Bible help. We have read through verses from the different prints and sometimes it just clicks for him to hear it worded a bit differently. Sometimes I know he doesn't really grasp the old world language. Sometimes I don't grasp the old world meanings. It has helped us to keep several prints of the Bible to reference as well as a Bible dictionary handy. I feel that the exposure and discussion is more important than my dc necessarily drawing the right conclusion after reading through the verse. I will take them through it and give examples that they can understand.
With humility in BHFHG, my son did not grasp why pride was not good because we often tell him we are proud of him when he achieves good things. It was confusing to him. He plays sports and gets it when we talk about sports in relation to almost anything. So I asked him how would it seem to the other boys on his team if he went about declaring himself the best soccer player and bragging. He caught on to the difference in being proud and being prideful then. I look at our Bible time not necessarily as a time for them to automatically draw the right conclusion off the bat but more as a time to expose them to the thought and plant the seed. We can then nurture the seed with our discussion and reap the benefits as they come.

[mrsrandolph]

I would consider going half pace with her. You have plenty of time.