One day last week, Hayzel and I went to the library for some new books. His reading level is very difficult to gauge right now. I get the leveled readers, but depending on the brand, he can be on any level from 1 to 4. To help pick out books, we use the 5 finger test. The way this works is that I open a book to one of the middle pages and have him read it out loud. For every word he misses or needs help with I put up a finger. By the time he reads the whole page, if I have 5 fingers up (or 4 or 6), then the book is just challenging enough for him. Using this method we took out 10 books ranging from levels 2-4 that he was interested in.
It usually takes Hayzel about 20 minutes to get through a book. We have a somewhat regular routine before bedtime. Once upon a time I used to read him bedtime stories, but lately he has been reading to me.
As an avid reader, his reading success makes me extremely proud. I can’t wait until the day he gets to meet Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Katniss Everdeen and many more characters that exist in the wonderful world of books.
If you want to keep track of the books he has read recently, I have a list on the right side of the blog.
Last Friday we co-op. There was no real theme set up, but Vanessa came up with a cool obstacle course and the kids, as usual, had a blast.
For the first time since beginning homeschooling, the confidence I have in my ability to teach was shaken.
Hayzel had a module on place values.
And for some reason, it just would not sink in for him. We did the computer work and I printed the supplemental worksheet and redid the computer lesson. We spent about 90 minutes working on this one morning, and finally decided to put it aside for later. Any other time, it would take Hayzel 45 minutes to get through a lesson and take the 10 question quiz at the end. This was a new experience for us and extremely frustrating.
I started thinking of other ways to teach him that caters more to his learning style. I’ve determined that his primary learning style is Visual, hence the use of an online curriculum. So I put my thinking cap on and did my research. Thank goodness for google, pinterest, Tania, and Hayzel Sr.; all who/which gave me great advice and ideas. I found a place values game through Pinterest.
We worked on that for a bit. I could see he was kind of getting it, but not fully. I had read some articles on teaching the same thing in various learning styles. So then I tried to cater to his kinesthetic learning style by making a trip to our local school supply store, The Teacher’s Pet, where I picked up some base ten blocks.
By the end of the week, we still had not conquered place values, so we had a rare Saturday morning school session. And wouldn’t you know it……..30 minutes after using the base ten blocks, Hayzel was ready for his quiz. I did allow him to use the blocks for help and I also reworded some of the questions for him. I will admit that some of the language was a bit confusing, even for me.
And here is his “I passed my quiz” smile!
He was so pumped he wanted to continue, so we moved on to reading and penmanship.
This was quite a learning experience for me and him. It taught me that I really need to make sure I don’t take out my frustration on Hayzel because he does pick up on it and it shakes his confidence.
Honestly, though, I’m very relieved that is behind us.
