To support homeschooling mums.

[Jlpst]

One to support you mums at this strange time, or just relieve the boredom, make you laugh. I am a primary school teacher,ask me anything.!

That's what is wrong with MN. There's always a few who love to troll and derail trails and ensure what little help people could find is no longer available.

I know plenty of dads doing just as much as mums - as most people are still working, they have to. None of them waste time on MN

@mitsyblue what you’re done sounds great for a 5 year old.

*doing not done

Genuine question.
How do you motivate a 9 year old with asd/adhd whom refuses to do school work at school at the best of times to do school work at home?
I’m pulling my hair out over it.

I take it you’ve tried reward systems? What is he/she interested in?

Are you able to organise a scheduled, calm time and work space? Predictability helps all chn but particularly those with extra needs.
Break a task into smaller chunks so there is a realistic chance of completion and quicker sense of achievement.
Aim to give a pebble in a jar or sticker on a chart or jigsaw piece towards completing a simple jigsaw each time a task is completed. The aim being that they get time on the iPad or PlayStation when complete.

Mamabear I’m not a teacher but I am a KS1 TA.
You asked about legibility. The likelihood is he’s not forming letters properly if you can’t read them. So you need to make sure he’s writing them correctly as a starting point.
Rather than do it as the alphabet, try and group the letters together in ‘families.’ All lowercase letters here, not capitals.
Start with the ‘c’ family. Get him to do a good c. Think about where he starts the letter so that it sits neatly on the line. He should be starting it at the top on the right hand side, and pulling his pencil over the top slightly and round to the left. (Hope that makes sense).
Once he can do a c, move on to a. You do a c, but instead of finishing at the bottom, go up to join up with your starting point (in a straight line, not a circle), and trace your line back down to form the stick. Now do d. Same as a, but a tall stick not a short one. G and q are the same but you drop the sticks under the line. And o. A complete circle but start more at the top than for c.
Then you can start on the ‘arch’ letters. R. Start st the top left, straight down, back up and over. N is the same, but you carry on your down stroke, and m is the same again but you do the arch twice.
Then he can have a go at p and b where you do the stick first.
The other letters don’t fit patterns in the same way but if he can do these families well it will make a massive difference.
The key for all of them is getting used to starting in the right place so your letter sits on the line, or hangs down in the right place.

Hope this is all understandable, and that it is useful.

@MamaBearLockdown

Twinkl is your friend.
www.twinkl.co.uk/resources/writing-and-grammar/literacy-handwriting/letter-formation

I'd also recommend getting hold of a whiteboard and pens for practice. Children use them all the time in school and saves wasting reams of paper. Make sure they start writing the letters at the right place.

gindrinker how is work being set from school? Are you getting weekly tasks? If so, would he respond to some element of choice? With my 11 Dd, who is not enjoying learning at home, I have shown her the list of tasks for each subject, and said, right, we are doing an hour of maths each day. So what do you want to start with? There’s a choice of this, this and this.
I am also using online learning platforms and if they play maths games, then that counts as some of their learning time.

Just unbelievable so because I phrase my title in a certain way I am now sexist. I don't think it would go down well being a teacher teaching both sexes.

Anyone who does have some genuine problems ask now and I will help .

I agree with @babybythesea (great name) about giving an element of choice within the firm expectation of work being done.

@vickibee snap. 15yo asd, hes turning night into day and school are expecting him to do schoolwork while DH and I are working fulltime almost on top of each other in the living room.
Not possible. I'm sick of everyone arguing, and schoolwork just makes it worse

@spanishfly.
Empathise entirely our ds is 13 and I am trying to WFH in a fashion at least. My son needs so much attention and the only thing that occupies him is gaming. He will go for a walk and care for his guinea pigs
School keep calling to ask how he is getting on and make me feel rubbish because he won't do anything.

@Camomila the method switswoo81 said worked wonders for 4yo DA who started receipted refusing to do much as touch a damn pencil. Also lots of drawing his special interest stuff (pj sodding masks) as he was then motivated to focus

@greenpop21 - like the idea of a naughty letter pushing in. That'll go down well with her I think! Different colours also a good idea so I think we'll be away now. Thanks so much for those tips. 😊

Glad to help @raydeeo she might like being the naughty letter too. Write the letters on paper or whiteboards and give her the naughty letter and get her to push in the right place.

With regards to split digraphs, we used to call it by the much more child-friendly term 'the magic e'. It makes the vowels say their names. We used to learn the short and long vowel sounds by pretending to be robots. So in quick, robotic voices - aeiou, repeated. Then, after a long day when the robots are tired, the sounds are ay, ee, igh, oh, yoo, said slowly. if you really work on short and long vowel sounds, plus other digraphs that also make the long vowel sounds, you can play matching games with flashcards to group short and long vowel sounds, group the digraphs that make the same sounds, play spelling games, etc. I believe there are resources on Twinkl that help reinforce the split digraphs. So putting the 'e' on the end changes hop to hope for example.

I have 1 can of diet coke left. The 4 yo just swapped my Bounty for his smarties. The twins are 4 months old. DH is wfh upstairs. I just need survival tips right now 😂😂

Also, How do I teach him to spell?? He can read OK for receipted but for example "said", he can read it but spells it "sed".

How do I teach him as pure repetition and rote isn't working

@sleeping Said is a common exception word. These words just have to be learnt by sight. You should be able to get a list of them from your school or Twinkle.

@Greenpop21 that works for reading, it's on our exception word list to learn over Easter but it doesn't appear to be working for spelling. Just wondered if their was a knack other than repetition

babybythesea

many thanks, that is really helpful.

Soontobe60

thank you, I will use that!

@SleepingStandingUp yes you can use a nemonic to memorise a word. For ‘said’ you could use Sally Ann Is Dancing. For ‘because’ use Big Elephants Cant Always Use Small Exits. Chn love them and there are many established ones or they can make theirs own do long as it’s memorable.

• make their own so long as

Gas! Mnemonic!

We do then through repetition but in more interesting ways. W.g. graffiti walls with lots of different pens, competitions to see how many times you can write the word in a minute, building the words with blocks etc.