Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Sloppy work

My DS6 is rushing through easy work and producing sloppy results. Specifically, he is being given color by number (literally 1, 2, 3) or color by word (pink, blue, red) worksheets and getting written feedback regarding the neatness of his work. He is getting the "facts" right on these worksheets but the only feedback from the teacher is "PLEASE SLOW DOWN AND COLOR NICELY". His reading is at DRA level 40 and he is multiplying, dividing and doing pre-algebra for fun at home, so the work is well below his level. My gut says there is something not good about this situation, but I have learned my lesson to go to the school only with facts and research, not gut feelings. I'm hoping to develop a good working relationship with the teacher and trying to pick my battles so I don't appear as overbearing as I may have been last year. Anyone have research to support my gut on this one or insight to help me decide whether this is a battle I should fight at this point?

How much facts and research do you need to show that coloring in is a pointless waste of time. How about they come up with some facts and research to show that there a reason for such activity.

For a bit of rebellion, how about scrawling his pre-algebra across the worksheets in multi-colored crayon.

I agree with the fine motor hand control comment above. Is it just the coloring the teacher has an issue with? He likely sees it as "busy work" because his focus is on the math facts and not on coloring within the lines for neatness.

I just have to interject one story on this topic. When our #1 was TWO-YEARS-OLD we had a very sweet, very young religious education teacher pull us aside, concerned that #1 was coloring outside the lines.

Years later, #1 metaphorically is still "coloring outside the lines." Despite beautiful handwriting and artwork.

On another note, the history of art education has been deeply influenced by the thinking of Viktor Lowenfeld, who made his career on the developmental stages of child art, one outgrowth of which was the contention that coloring pages impeded the natural development of creativity in children. The available evidence does not appear to be all his way, so take that with a grain of salt. But it's certainly at least as legitimate as the peculiar primary-grade teacher insistence on coloring within the lines.

After K, when asked about "art" he did in class, my son said - "We didn't do art, we did copying." <> I told him he should do it, but he was allowed to tear it up when it came home in his folder. He did.

DS used to struggle with poor handwriting....and still does when rushing....but has improved dramatically. Only 1 out of every 20+ written letters on handwriting assignments need correction, so fine motor skills seem to be developing on target. There may be some learned behaviors with the coloring. In K, DS was allowed to escape into his own immaginative play, with worlds made out of cut paper, after his work was completed. He's frequently rushing through activities to make more time for play and to be honest, as an adult I do the same thing....who doesn't....so I struggle with holding him to a higher standard than I'd hold myself. Yet here is his teacher only noting the shoddy coloring and not recognizing the 100% correct answers.

Wow-- I should SO scan and post a shot of my DD4's idea of "Math mystery" coloring pages-- the kind with the color-coded sections filled in with a color key?

Yeah, a big "X" in each one was good enough for HER, tyvm, and she just rolled her eyes at me if I asked for anything more than that. Gave up on that particular "make math drills fun" attempt.

Forced colouring is a pointless activity. Really. It accomplishes absolutely nothing as far as thinking or creativity are concerned. My son is 2.10; I measure his level of interest in colouring in micro-give-a-thsis. (In the spirit of futile school activities, I made that last word a jumble to unscramble!)

Maybe a compromise is to cut down on the hoop-jumping activities he's required to do. As in, if he can complete the end of year hidden picture colouring sheet, then he gets to do problems from a folder you send in, or read the book of his choice.

The venemous tone is in no way directed at you OP, but rather reflects my exasperation with educators who feel the need to force conformity when children clearly require a challenge.

I was helping out a church creche once when one of the supervisors told a child she hadn't even tried to colour neatly. I pointed out that just turned 3 year olds are generally not developmentally ready. The lady who organised the lessons came up with a developmental readiness chart for future reference.

Ds5 has been able to colour quite well since 2 though so I am happy for him to put a coloured cross on maths things if he is not in the mood.

First you need to be absolutely sure of the reason. What action you take depends on that.

I was always rushing, not good with coloring inside the lines. In freshman biology lab, when I tried putting the intestines back together on my dog fish shark, before the teacher came by, he just told me not to become a surgeon, as he almost flicked guts at me. So maybe your son should not be a surgeon.

The key is to understand whether he can color carefully, but will not, or whether he cannot do it at all. Those are two very different situations.

Assuming he can, my advice is, let it go. As an elementary school student, this was ground I refused to yield, and I was quite contented to get U's or C's/D's in penmanship, so long as all my other marks were good. If the teacher could read the words, that was all that mattered, and I couldn't be bothered to make my work look pretty. My hand moved too slowly for my brain as it was. Later on, that turned out to be the right habit, as working quickly and barely legibly allowed me to maintain a mental flow state while writing essays, which meant I was able to churn out more and higher-quality content during timed/untimed writing exercises.

DD9 is skipped into 5th grade and in a G/T daily pull-out for ELA. Among her homework assignments last week was an instruction to draw a picture, and integrate her spelling words into it. We shared a mutual eye roll, and I gave her leave to put in minimal effort, which she did. She made a random loopy line, then wrote her words in places along the line.

DD had always had beautiful writing until she reached K, so we knew that for her it was never a question of "cannot," and her penmanship suffered as a clear symptom of her discomfort with school. In order to make sure she played the game and showed what she was capable of, I did point out errors when she rushed through math homework and made obvious mistakes, and I did make her rewrite anything that was illegible. But I never pushed her to return to her previous levels of penmanship, and always accepted anything I could read as "good enough." She's starting to self-motivate back in that direction this year.

At many elementary schools, including those of my children, unfortunately, there is heterogeneous grouping, no grade or subject acceleration, and no gifted program. Age determines all. This is a bad system, but perhaps one saving grace is that you have little to lose by being mildly noncompliant. So if your son's school is like ours, he can color quickly, use the extra time to read a book (I hope), and perhaps accept a slightly lower grades in 1st grade. If your school had a gifted program that depended on teacher nominations, the calculation could be different.

Yes, and

Yes.

Dexterity and hand strength are important for many things, not just handwriting. It's one thing if he's got fantastic fine motor skills and is just bored, but it's entirely possible (and very common) for him to be avoiding/rushing it because it's too hard for him. Teachers like crayons because you have to be strong to use them, kids prefer markers because they're easier.

My children and most of their friends have huge discrepancies between their mental abilities and their hand writing and fine motor skills, including delays and things which need therapy.

When DS was in PS in skipped 1st grade, the teachers mainly emphasized on coloring and cutting - 2 things that my DS was not good at and was absolutely disinterested in. He could color well if someone sat with him and instructed him. On his own, no way. He rushed through coloring (which was everyday) and went off to the Blocks and Lego corner of the class to build something which was more important to him than the unchallenging work.
At home, all the "fun coloring math" homework (color the pieces of the puzzle green where the sum of the numbers = 9 etc to figure out the hidden animal) were colored by me (my DS was doing 4th grade math and some pre algebra at that time that I did not care if he refused to color in pictures for math).

The flip side, as Bostonian says, is that the teacher would not accept that DS was ready for higher level acceleration because he did not perfect his coloring and cutting skills (he could do well with a few reminders to slow down and be neat). She said that he got frustrated if things took long and coloring a picture took too long for him. We pulled him out of that school and put him in a school with rigorous academics where there is very little coloring, cutting, pasting etc. Big relief for the whole family! My DS was just bored to death of coloring because he did a ton of it at daycare and preschool and he was ready to learn academics. His fine motor skills are excellent (he plays piano at a high level and builds circuits with small components for fun), but he hates coloring and using that as a standard for measuring a child's readiness for higher level work is stupidity.

Perhaps there may be some benefit in the physical process of coloring in. (I don't know. I'm agnostic on this, and won't bother looking into it.)

But I still think that coloring in worksheets for academic subjects like math are a complete waste of time. For example this You could have an online version where you simply click in the appropriate regions. (If it really had to be done on paper, a quick scribble in each section should be sufficient.) Preferably if the child can easily do the pure math task they should be allowed to proceed rapidly onwards until they reach something challenging. Education needs to be efficient. There is no legitimate place for all this mind-crushing busywork.

After reading this thread, I agree that the "ability" to color nicely is one question. If you can say that he can color within the lines, then I would think he has trouble seeing value in the assignment.

Not saying that your son is like mine, but when my ds was told he didn't try and rushed, it was not true. My ds had a vision issue and needed vision therapy. What that teacher said to him, crushed his self- esteem. He still gets nervous if he sees her.

I think it's pretty typical for 6 year old boys to see no value or interest in coloring and rush through it. I know that my 7 year old still has trouble with the fine motor aspect of it, but he CAN color when he puts effort into it. He just doesn't care enough. I can see how it's a beneficial exercise for kids who are weak in fine motor skills, because it probably helps them learn to write neatly...but if that is not the case, it seems silly to push "neat" coloring.

There are other ways to improve fine-motor skills, too. Musical instruments and typing come immediately to mind.