Maybe not directly H&F related but I've gotten some good reading suggestions from this board before. Does anyone have any suggested reading to assist with helping kids with schoolwork and grades?

Have an elementary school aged daughter and I'm having a hard time finding study tactics that seem to stick with her. Don't get me started on the school system, but that's just a hurdle we're going to have to figure out and we've got more kids going through the same ISD so we just need to figure it out for now.

Her grades aren't terrible but they could be better. I need some help on different study tactics to try to find something that will stick with her.

Kind of vague, what issue is she having?

The main issue right now is study habits and comprehension, I think. Obviously her grades are important to me, but right now I'm more worried about her forming good study habits so that when she gets to middle school and high school and the grades "matter" more, she has built up good habits to be prepared for that. I'm more concerned with the process over the results, but the grades going up is an indicator that we are on to something with the right process.

She'll review material on her own and be 100% confident that she knows it well, then when we go over it with her it's like she's never heard any of it before. A lot of "I don't know, I don't remember".

So then we will go over it with her, she'll seem to grasp things better after about 30 minutes, to at least the point I feel comfortable she understands the material. Then she'll come back with Cs and mid Bs. There are occasional As but not as consistently as I would like.

So rather than me just telling her she needs to study 2 hours every day, I'm trying to see if there are some books that talk about different personality types, brain types, whatever and different study habits and tricks that might be helpful for knowledge retention and comprehension.

The concerning thing is the teacher seems to think "she's doing just fine". Which, maybe she is relative to what their expectations are, but the goal and expectation for what we get out of life in our house isn't to just be average or slightly above.

https://www.workinggenius.com/students

Our family took these assessments to try and better understand better how our brains tick. It's an interesting and different approach that was fairly revealing for us. The student version wasn't available at the time, but we went for the standard version for all of my teens. Elementary school aged kids might be too young, however from what my wife and I learned from this approach, we see tendencies in our younger children that help us to guide them in their studies.

I view these kinds of things no different that with lifting. It is a discipline that has to be developed, so trying to address it early on is a good idea. It also includes some trial and error, again no different than lifting. The challenge will be the discipline to actually learn material or just memorize and regurgitate it like our culture is generally programmed to do.

With that said, I am not sure how efficient younger children can be at something like independent study; we have a 10 year old that is kind of hit or miss when he is given assignments or has tests he needs to study for. We homeschool, so it is setup a bit different, but it is quite a family affair and has taken some trial and error. One of my challenges is managing expectations as it relates to his age.

My wife reads to him a lot from his history textbooks (he is generally an auditory learner), but he is also expected to go back and review and be prepared for a test. They also talk through a lot of the subject matter to reinforce. One of his grandmothers calls him to go over spelling words and that has worked much better than anything my wife has done with that subject. Again, a lot of trial and error to try and figure out what works best for him. As he gets older, there will be more and more consequence for not being disciplined with some of the independent work. On the flip side, we also do incentivize some things as well and that is welcomed from him.

On top of all of that, if parents aren't very disciplined, don't expect your children to be...they are watching.

Yes, this is kind of the approach I am taking. She's been doing "fine" in the younger grades, but as the material gets more advanced I can slowly start to see that she is more memorizing/regurgitating than she is comprehending and thinking through things. When the test or homework requires application of concepts or critical thinking, that is where we generally run into more trouble.

The hard part is that it's hard to know where to look to find outside resources that line up with and reinforce what they're learning in school. So much of the extra material they're provided is not very helpful at all. It's silly games, or online stuff and things that are a waste of time. I want homework time to be homework time and then she can go play a game that is actually good with her free time once she has completed it.

The whole process has been incredibly frustrating but I'm trying to figure out a way to help her and motivate her.

I have read more books that focus on the mental functions of boys brains than girls since typically girls at that age are better at taking instruction.

All kids are different and so is how they learn and how they are motivated. You have to take the time to figure out what works best for your daughter but don't figure everything out for her. Yes schools aren't perfect but you can help them when they get home. As stated being the example helps, if they see you reading instead of playing on your phone they will do the same. It may take them a bit to find something they like enough to do this but once they do things get a lot easier. Now all of my kids are reading several grades higher than what class they are in.

Discipline and patterns are what we focus on but we also focus on the kids figuring out what works for them. They come home, can get a snack if they want, and then get to work. If they don't have any homework they read for at least 15-20 minutes (ages 10 down to 6). We don't have to tell them to get started, they know what's expected of them. We let them decide on how to study so they can figure out what works for them and we test them over what they learn so we can make suggestions. My stepson and son are both in 4th grade but study differently. My son can learn on his own and rarely needs to right stuff down where my stepson needs us to quiz him afterwards and it helps when he writes things down or takes notes. Both get straight A's

My daughter in first grade needs help studying sometimes since she can read something but not fully comprehend things. With her it is slowing her down and making sure she understands it herself.

We are also big on motivation not being something they are thinking about, they have to have the discipline if they want to succeed in life. The book Discipline Equals Freedom is a good read for adults and Jocko's kid's book series Way of the Warrior Kid is great for kids too.

P.U.T.U said:

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If they don't have any homework they read for at least 15-20 minutes (ages 10 down to 6).

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I think this is part of the problem. It seems like their teachers aren't communicating clearly on what the students are expected to work on at home and she almost never has "homework" in the traditional sense.

It's basically, if she doesn't finish it in class, it's homework. But she generally finishes it at school and it never makes it home for us to see it. Then it's "Oh hey there's a test next week" and they give us a review with 48-72 hours to try to cram all this knowledge into her head.

Then when they had an upcoming unit test (according to a 10 year old mind you, so I always take it with a grain of salt) the teacher said, "I think you guys know this stuff, so I'm not going to send home a review, you don't need to study". Which is just mind boggling to me. So we tried to study with whatever she had in a notebook and, lo and behold, she makes a 75.

A lot of this is frustration with our school district, admittedly. So I'm just trying to figure out how on earth I can counter their incompetence with instruction at home without having to basically home school her all evening.

Any way to get a parent/teacher meeting to discuss? Or volunteer in the classroom? Kids are not the best about passing on information and there can be a lot lost in translation over emails. If your kid is 10 I assume they have similar work as mine, could always scan you what they are working on and send your way

If she has homework in elementary school and doesn't want to do it, just ignore it. Give her a book to read and see if that works. If there are no problems in the classroom, just tell the teacher y'all don't do homework, so quit sending it.

P.U.T.U said:

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Any way to get a parent/teacher meeting to discuss? Or volunteer in the classroom? Kids are not the best about passing on information and there can be a lot lost in translation over emails. If your kid is 10 I assume they have similar work as mine, could always scan you what they are working on and send your way

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Have done the first one, and as for the second, the school has basically adopted a "no parents allowed" approach post Covid. I think they got a taste of what it's like to have nobody meddling in their day to day affairs and want to keep that gravy train going as long as possible.

Teacher complained a lot about this approach to us and the curriculum, but that's obviously an issue higher up the foodchain than he can address.

Nothing comes home for us to review - almost all work is done on the computer and in school. I can probably count on one hand the number of graded papers I've seen come home with her this year.

I may try this. Worry less about the grades (as long as they aren't total garbage obviously) and focus more on the structured time for "studying" and just focusing on the habit itself rather than the current curriculum.

I do worry about pushing too hard and causing test anxiety and things like that so this may be a good compromise.

CC09LawAg said:

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I may try this. Worry less about the grades (as long as they aren't total garbage obviously) and focus more on the structured time for "studying" and just focusing on the habit itself rather than the current curriculum.

I do worry about pushing too hard and causing test anxiety and things like that so this may be a good compromise.

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One nice thing about having 6 kids, 2 adopted, 2 disabled, 4 in GT, ranging from a D1 athlete to a wheelchair athlete, a national merit scholar to a 2-time dropout, is that you don't have time to worry about other people's obsessions.

"You want my 9 YO to do homework? Let's say we don't."

"Okay, we'll just go with that."
(By the way, that was the national merit scholar).