How to Encourage Independent Learning (part 13)

I originally wrote the following in response to someone on the Tapestry Of Grace yahoo group who had a 7 year old and was wondering how she could encourage him to learn to work more independently. My friends Guinever and Beth encouraged me to also post this on my blog, so here it is! These are a few of the things we have done/are doing to encourage independence. Hope it is helpful for someone!


1. Try to find and keep the balance between expecting too much and expecting too little. Independence in schoolwork is a learned skill, and he *is* just 7. Our now 8 year old has made a big improvement over last year, and last year he could do NOTHING without me right there! So take heart! A lot of it is maturity and comes with time.

2. Find what motivates him and use it. For us, the timer and the nickel reward system have been the biggest motivators. My 8 and 9 year old boys are very slow with their math work. They can do it, but they daydream and distract themselves. A few weeks ago I started setting the timer for 30 minutes and saying that when the timer dinged we were moving on to other things even if their math was not done. Then in the afternoon when they could be having free time, they'd have to finish their math on their own time. This has kept us all from having to wait for the slow pokes. A "positive" reward is to give 5 extra nickels to the person who finishes BEFORE the timer dings (or before the long hand gets to the 12 or whatever). My children are beginning to be strongly motivated by money, so this works! (they get 10 nickels at the start of each day anyway, so these are in addition to that)

3. Organize your own duties in such a way that you can give him 30 minute chunks of uninterrupted time. Pick his easiest task, one you know he will be successful at, and sit there quietly next to him doing your own paperwork while he does it on his own. Then afterward, give him LOTS of praise and point out to him how capable he is! This kind of message playing in his head day after day after day will help give him the confidence he needs to try more things "on
his own".

4. Show him an earlier page in a certain book (math or whatever) and talk about how when he first started doing that it seemed so hard, but now it's easy. (we did this just this morning with 8 year old's math book - he was encouraged to see his progress for himself!)

5. Be willing to consider a change in certain curriculum to something that is more measurable for him. Example: last year we used copywork for our then 7 year old's handwriting practice (plus I was trying to be more Charlotte Mason-ish). His handwriting was atrocious and he hated doing copywork. This year we switched back to a more traditional handwriting workbook and he is happier because he can see exactly how each letter is to be formed and how many lines he
has to complete until he is done for the day. And his handwriting is much better!

6. Make and use a daily assignment sheet. Teach him (over the course of many weeks, day after day after day) how to cross off the boxes when he completes that task. Consider giving him a small reward (such as extra computer time or whatever works for your family) if he completes the entire column for that day. I have grouped all the language arts type things together on our 8 year old's assignment sheet and given them a light blue background color so that he can easily see which things in that group he still needs to do. All of his TOG work (which isn't much) is light green, and so on. Colors seem to help him.

7. Commit to checking his daily assignment sheet at least twice a day, we do before lunch and mid afternoon (when they tell me they're done). Sometimes life gets so busy that I forget to check up on how well they are following their assignment sheets, so this is something I am working on as well!

Remember, learning to work independently is a process that we are all in together, so take comfort knowing you are not alone!