How do you teach a child who doesn't want to learn?

[PoptartPoptart]

DS is 6 and in year 2. He is just about average at maths and reading, but his spelling and writing are way below where he should be. The school do not offer any sort of booster groups for literacy, they just tell me I have to do more practice with him at home, which I try to do. The problem is, he is so disinterested and it is always a battle to get him to sit with me and practice.
I've tried everything, reward charts, bribes, pleading, threats, taking toys and treats away, but nothing works and I'm at a loss how to motivate him. I keep the sessions short and just try to do 10-15 minutes a day. He just sits there looking at the clock and wasting time messing about till the time is up. Then I get cross and it all ends up a waste of time. I've tried doing it in the mornings as he seemed so tired after school, but no matter what time of day he reacts in the same way. I am not trying to make him top of the class, I just worry that he is going to fall further and further behind if I don't help him. Any ideas welcome please.

I would try and make it less like work amd more like fun. Lots of children are not ready to have to sit down and 'work' at 6. Which is why countries like Finland always come out better in reading and writing than we do, even though, or possibly because, they don't start formal education until 7.
I would be inclined to find out what his interests are, for DS it was football, and try and get him to do some writing geared towards that. DS liked to make lists for his dream team. he also was obsessed with sticker books and would sit for gours reading them- but I couldn't get him interested in school work. He is now 22 and has gcses in both maths and english and is a qualified bricklayer.
I really wouldn't worry. Average is not that bad, you know.

Would he practice his spelling if he did it by playing games? There a lot of free spelling games on the internet so there's sure to be one he likes - e.g.

www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/literacy.html#7

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/websites/4_11/site/literacy.shtml

www.kidsspell.com/

Another possibility is to get him to learn to touchtype - www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/

practicing typing words to increase his speed (keep a graph so he can see progress) once he has mastered the keyboard does improve spelling without it seeming like spelling practice.

Making any writing he does only about things he really likes - favourite characters from cartoons or books might help. Ask him to write one sentence about what happened when character X met character Y - picking a really odd combination to make it more fun.

When my daughter had writing problems/reluctance we finally tackled it by having speed races - e.g. how many times could she write a certain word in a minute. She also copied out poems/jokes/paragraphs from favourite books which allowed writing practice without worrying about what to write.

It's just trial and error to find what gets over the reluctance. Good luck!

Thanks for your reply insancerre. I do try to make the writing and spellings fun, I encourage him to write stories about days out we've had, and cut and stick pictures from magazines. Also, he loves baking so we write recipes and so forth.
I'm not trying to make him top of the class and I'm certainly no pushy mum that wants her child to be the best. I'll take average with reading and maths, but his teacher is concerned he is falling behind with his writing and spelling, yet they offer no advice apart from 'do more at home'. Maybe I'll move to Finland lol.

Thanks flamingtoaster, some good tips there, I'll give it a go

Yes, agree with insancerre - I once had a tutoring job teaching a 7yo boy to read English (he was English/French bilingual but had never been to an English school) and cracked it by relating everything to Star Wars, his obsession at the time. I got him books about it, made flashcards of character pictures and names, etc. What does your DS enjoy?

If he's an OK reader I would also encourage this (let him choose his own books at the library etc) rather than drilling him on spelling and writing - those skills will naturally improve with exposure to the written word.

Finally, bear in mind that by the time your DS leaves school he is very unlikely to spend much time physically writing - everything will be typed and he'll always have access to spell check! The only thing I ever actually "write" is a birthday card - even my shopping list gets tapped into my smartphone! :)

The problem is, he has to read certain books for school and write reviews about them. He also gets spellings each week that he has to learn. So I can't be too relaxed about what we do as I feel under pressure from the school to make sure he is learning the stuff they set him. The thing is, I love teaching and helping him and it's soooo frustrating that he doesn't want to and wont engage. Today I ended up getting really cross because he was just messing about and generally using every excuse in the book not to read with me. I feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall

Agree with the less like work and more like fun. Find something he loves and use it as a topic for reading and writing. Sounds like a lack of motivation and who can blame him. When he does well or complies make a fuss and reward him. Will take time but I'm sure you can turn this around. No kid wants to do something they don't find motivating.

What about doings but of work then doing something he loves for a bit, football.. Whatever it is he loves. It is time consuming but eventually her may just get into the routine.

Does he give you a reason for not being interested? I know a 10 year old that's in Saturday school at the moment to help him get to the level everyone knows he can achieve, I think a lot of it is confidence. He's very fit and active and quick witted and gets a lot with his charm. He's also go a heart of gold and I think he's fabulous but I can see that he lacks confidence with some of the academics. His mum's been using the Gsce bite size quizzes which they've enjoyed together, it gave him a boost to know he could tackle stuff "above" him and has got him going on the other things. Knowing lots of primary school teachers I'm surprised they've offered no other ideas. You sound like you're coming up with loads of good options and are persevering, he's lucky to have you!

I think the main reason he resists is mainly because he would just rather be doing something else! He does get disheartened and a bit upset when he can't do something or doesn't get something right, but I suspect this is more to do with the fact that he wants to get things right and done quickly and he knows that if he gets things wrong it will take longer while I explain and go over it with him.
I have never criticised him and always use lots of praise regardless of whether he gets things right or wrong. I tell him I am here to help him and if he doesn't understand or finds something hard then I am here to help him. I always tell him how proud I am of him.
He loves playing Wii games so I have tried using that as an incentive, ie, we do 15 minutes of story writing and then we can play the Wii. But even that is not enough of an incentive most days and he ends up losing time on the Wii (or losing it completely) because he refuses to write his story or book review. I just don't know how to get through to him.
The school are not particularly helpful, they have suggested the obvious things, star charts, etc, - I feel that they think homework is my problem not theirs.
I will not give up on this as it is so important that he doesn't fall further behind, it's just causing a lot of stress at home at the moment.

I know you want him to write, but I've been reading that creative writing is hard for some young kids and we force it too early. Instead of doing that I'm trying the Susan Wise Bauer books. Copywork and reading comprehension stuff. Idea is that by giving them good examples, then it will come in time. Apparently what is really important is helping them to be able to hold a sentence in their heads. Basically we can't write as fast as we can think, so have to be hold the idea in our heads while we get it down. Apparently that can make it really frustrating. I often give DD a couple of sentences from a book we've been reading that she really likes for copy writing. then if she wants to write something, I scribe for her. Basically split the process up till she got more confident. Since doing that, she's gone off on her own and written her own stuff.

Also friend's son is the same age and was having writing problems - her teacher asked to get him to write 3 sentences a day each holiday. He does it while she is in the shower. I'm not aware of being asked to do extra during term time. Another friend solved the story writing by telling stories with her son - each can do one sentence - basically you can keep it flowing. DD loves that too, and can do it in the car or walking down the street.

My ds completely refused to do work outside of school when he was small. He felt that he'd had enough of doing things he didn't want to do and really resented homework. Spellings in particular led to a lot of stress and anger. So we stopped doing them. I'm not convinced that they are a useful exercise in any case (there is very little evidence that homework at primary helps children, and wrote learning of spelling is much less important than understanding how to spell). My ds is dyslexic so that was the root of his frustration but he also doesn't have the best fine motor control which is why his writing isn't great. If your ds struggles with pencil control then it might be better to play lots of games / activities that help his fine motor control - you might both enjoy that more too.

I've had the same issue with spelling and writing with my 6yo ds (slightly different situation from yours as he's HE, so no school to keep happy, but some of this might help).
For spelling, you could try Reading Eggs (even just for the free 2-week trial) - there are lots of spelling lessons on there (in the Skills Bank bit) and, on the Reading Eggspress bit, children can play online races against other kids to choose correct spellings etc (sort of like Mathletics but spelling). DS finds it really good fun.
Certainly with my ds, what was holding his spelling back was the fact that he wasn't applying his knowledge of phonics to writing. Reinforcing phonics might help.

DS was a very reluctant writer. To encourage him, I got him to write things that would benefit him in a concrete way - I asked him, for example to write a list of any books he'd like for Christmas. I also encourage him to label drawings, keep a diary etc. His problem was that he did have ideas he wanted to get down, but his writing ability didn't match up to the speed he had the ideas at, so he got disillusioned, and didn't want to do it. I wonder if the same's true of your ds - that he can't write as quickly as his brain's working, and he's getting frustrated. In which case, I'd also put out a shout for Mrz. She's a primary teacher, and, from what I can tell from her posts on here, an outstanding and dedicated one. I'm sure she'd have some helpful ideas.

I've recently found a book which you may find helpful and you should be able to get it from your library.

It's called 'Playful Learning' by Mariah Bruehi.

She has some really nice ideas which may help set the scene for sparking your son's enthusiasm a bit. I've tried a couple of things with DS1 (admittedly he's 4, but the book is apparently appropriate from 4-8 yrs) and they've worked quite well. She is obviously working with unlimited resources and lots more space than most people have, but you can pick and choose the bits you like.

If he goes to quite a pushy school, they are perhaps used to parents picking up the slack. Why don't they do booster classes or after school literacy club? Our school has both because they have to - I'd start there, not worrying about how to teach him
I don't do anything with my eldest as it winds him up massively. He is fine at school and listens to them. In the end, I decided it was affecting our relationship - me nagging, him stressing - so I left him to it. He's doing just fine.
If you can't face leaving him to it how about a tutor?

If he goes to quite a pushy school, they are perhaps used to parents picking up the slack. Why don't they do booster classes or after school literacy club? Our school has both because they have to - I'd start there, not worrying about how to teach him
I don't do anything with my eldest as it winds him up massively. He is fine at school and listens to them. In the end, I decided it was affecting our relationship - me nagging, him stressing - so I left him to it. He's doing just fine.
If you can't face leaving him to it how about a tutor?

Thank you so much for all your replies, some really good suggestions.

hi,my ds is just like your ds sounds.he's also 6.just below average at school and i find it near impossible to get him to do anything,all i get is sighing and moaning he's had enough after 2 mins.
one thing I've tried this week is to get him to make up a silly short story using all of his spellings.he loved it and actually had fun whilst writing.
just thought id give you the idea.

My DS is like this. He is almost 9 now, and probably still rather "behind". He doesn't see the point of learning a lot of what school thinks is important, and I can see his point sometimes. But look, the levels school say they are supposed to achieve at certain ages are not the be all and end all, and every system is different anyway (we are now on our 4th curriculum, due to moving countries a lot).

6 is really little still. Don't worry about your DS, he is learning all the time, by going to the shops with you, playing outside, everything he does. At 6 my DS would have acted like he was being tortured when he had to do a few sums on paper, but if you took him to the big park and he needed to work out if he had enough money for the go-kart rides, he suddenly became Einstein.

He is never going to be the kind of child who skips into the house and gets the homework books out, BUT, after lots of struggles over the years we have now got the the stage where he takes responsibility for his homework. I think it was the right thing to do to stand back, let him get on with it and not correct too much. Or, let him take the consequences of not doing it and having to stay in at playtime to do it.