Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Alternative learning methods for 2E

Instead of having my son, who has handwriting difficulties, do worksheets or copy things from a board for language arts, I let him type paragraphs from books he enjoys. I don't get mad if he changes the words around a little to make a funny, which he often does, just so long as he uses proper punctuation. He enjoys this and is able to type very well now. He would not use the typing program I got for him to learn to type a couple of years ago. He developed his own method, first one-handed, then using both hands. Somehow, he learned to type quickly--I am guessing about 50 wpm. My husband told me that his older highly gifted son from a previous marriage also taught himself how to type when he was young but insisted on doing it his own way and once tested at over 100 wpm, but my husband's older son did not have sensory or motor issues to deal with. I am happy that my son can type as fast as he can. There is no way that my son could write that fast or write that much, so I haven't been having him practice handwriting as much as I probably should. The doctor even recommended having him learn to type two years ago and it worked so well that I just haven't had him write that much any more.

How long should a kid with handwriting problems practice? I'm sure I will be asked about this when he sees the doctor.

The doctor might ask me how he learns the boring rote memorization things like spelling and I haven't decided if I should tell her about letting him do this while playing video games. He is learning an average of 100 words a week this way. He says he has to keep his mind active and he has always been able to do things like listen to the news while playing games in another room and remember more of it than I do. He told me yesterday that if he doesn't do something like video games while doing something boring, he makes up stuff like changing letters of words around in his head to see if he can make anagrams--even while he listens to people speak. He wanted to know if this was weird. He was worried that other people might think it was strange.

Tell him for me that this isn't weird, but it isn't what most people have to do. And it's a wonderful skill to be able to "turn up the interest" on dull problems by adding his own challenge. That's one of the key differences between GT kids who can hack school and those who can't. Not that school is his concern, but in adult life there are plenty of dull, have to jobs, and being able to make a game of it might be the difference between doing ones taxes and jail. ((wink))

Honsestly if you could get him to do handwriting practice for 3 good minutes a day, will full consentration, and he really did it, you would see some improvement. If you throw in one fun hand strengthening activity (holding the stylus on the Nintendo DS while playing "My Word Coach"? for 4 minutes I'll bet that would help even more.

I'm so glad that you have found work-arounds that work for your son. My hat is off to you and I am waving and cheering for you!

Trinity

Thank you, Trinity.

We have thought about getting "My Word Coach." I think that is a good idea. He liked Brain Age. But first he will have to buy a new Nintendo DS because his old one broke.

And now, for the rest of the story. I only posted about the "easier" problems I deal with, the ones that I have found some solutions for or found really good advice. I didn't have a chance to post the rest of it.

I think my son probably has some kind of dysgraphia, along with his vestibular and proprieceptive issues, and we hope to get a diagnosis in January when he sees the developmental pediatrician that he last saw two years ago at age 7. He was reversing some letters and numbers when he was tested then, but we were told to try Handwriting without Tears and since this did help with spacing issues and legibility, I thought his handwriting was as good as it was going to get and, of course, typing solved a lot of our problems. My son only reverses letters and numbers when he is tired, stressed, or distracted and he seems to be doing okay learning the Handwriting without Tears cursive.

But... we have not solved the problems that writing issues cause with math. Aleks lets him move forward as he learns new concepts quickly and he is doing middle school math and he even seems to like it, but it tests him regularly over the material he has learned. When it comes to things like long division and multiplication where he can't use a calculator he gets very upset that he has to do all of the writing because then he has to make sure that the 2's he has written are really 2's and not a 5 that he wrote backwards and then lining the numbers up is more difficult for him than other kids. He has always been able to do a lot of math calculations mentally but I know he will have to do a lot more writing in math as he progresses, so I have been making him do his own writing.

I homeschool, but I have read things on teachers.net about similar kids and most teachers do not understand this problem and some describe kids like mine as lazy because they resist doing a lot of written work. I can't imagine being a bright kid with this problem in our public school. I want to help my son but he gets upset with me to the point that he yells at me and wads up the paper and throws it out of frustration. He gets upset with me when I don't know how to answer his questions like "why can't I do it this way if I come up with the right answer?" He insults my intelligence because I don't have a good enough understanding of math to be able to answer all of this questions. I got upset when he told me he wanted a math tutor and I told him I would put him back in school and his "math tutor" would be a special ed teacher who would have to figure out what to do with him. I know this was a terrible thing to say, but I just lost it. There is just so much stress in our family right now and as a verbally gifted kid he knows how to push my buttons.

I so wish we could just be unschoolers. This would work well for language arts (since he can type) and history and science and just about everything, but there is no way he would do math on his own because of his writing problems. I lurk on their message boards and they sound like they are having so much fun with their kids and...

I am definitely not having much fun at the moment.

My husband, who is retiring from a very stressful job and is home a lot more now until he finds another job, says he hopes he can find another job quickly because he doesn't want to listen to this.

I have no advice to offer but I just wanted to wish you strength and good luck.

The only thing I can think by the way is maybe it is worth to check his eye vision, especially eye coordination and tracking.

I really hope things get better soon.

Oh Lori H!
I feel your pain! For a while I did scibing for Math, because I felt my son's messy writing was holding him back. Yes there was yelling (we now call it "other-directed perfectionism") tears and threats! I call it the balanced-push. I believe you when you say you can't unschool.

here's what helped.
I scribed until he couldn't stand it, then we took turns.
I let him use a calculator sometimes.
I had him turn the notebook paper sideways, so the lines could keep him lined up.
I insisted that he use one page for each problem. It helps to say, over and over, "Trees love to die to be made into paper for math problems."
If he was getting slowed down by errors, he would do the problem, I would check it with a claculator, and tell him if he got it wrong, so he had a chance to do it over, without the penelty of having to do so many more.

Aleks was wonderful for us because it convinsed him of the value of slowing down, checking his work, and writing down steps. I made the deal that he could use the calculator to check any written down step.

I've never tried this, but how about you ask him to come up with a neumonic device to seperate 2 from 5. Such as color in the bottom of the 5s - Maybe that would help?

((big hugs))
trinity

I asked my son to show me how he wanted to do the division problems, because the way he was doing them was different from the way I had been taught and the way the books said to do it and because he was doing some of it mentally and I couldn't see what he was doing.

Example: 984 divided by 37. Instead of using estimation and multiplication to solve the problem he counts by 37's mentally until he finds how many times it will go into 98 and so on. No estimation involved and no having to multiply it out and change your answer if you didn't get it right the first time. He also does the subtraction mentally so there is no regrouping. He just writes the answer. He usually does get the answer right but if he doesn't, I can't quickly tell where he went wrong because I am not as good with mental math.

Maybe I should let him use a calculator to check his answer. He hates to be wrong.

My husband told me he has always done division this way (my son says it is obvious he inherited his dad's math genes) and can't see a problem with it. He told me when he was in school he was chosen by his school to compete in an interscholastic regional math competition when he was only in 8th grade and all the others were high school students. My husband never had handwriting problems--he just found it easier to do things his way.

When my son does problems that involve order of operations he is able to remember the PEMDAS rules and can even solve some of those problems mentally, but again if he doesn't write anything down and he gets something wrong, I can't tell what he did wrong.

I can see where a dysgraphic kid might benefit by using as much mental math as possible.

As far as writing backwards 5s occasionally, I think it is some kind of quirky left-right confusion thing that comes out when he is tired or distracted. I have noticed that he is still somewhat ambidextrous and will use both his right and left hands to eat.

Your DS's way seems like a lot more efficient method than the estimating, Lori H. I was always annoyed when doing long division if I guessed wrong the first time and had to erase. I like his way better!

I just found some helpful advice in the May/June 2007 issue of the 2e Newsletter. Advice like "Let students discover their own methods of problem solving and do not insist that students show their work." "So I guess I don't need to worry about the math differences.

I have also been doing a lot of reading about motor dyspraxia and so many things seem to fit my son--visual motor integration and handwriting problems, not crawling when he was a baby, sensory issues, hypotonia, motor planning issues, lack of interest in doing puzzles (except online), and difficulty learning a sequence of dance steps, occasional left/right confusion, the tracking issues he used to have, and even the headaches. I even found "momentary lack of oxygen" at birth listed as a possible cause and I have always wondered if his difficult birth was the reason for his difficulties. There is no family history of anything like this, so my son even asked once if I thought it was because of a genetic mutation and has jokingly referred to himself as a "freak and a geek" because of his differences. It would be really nice to finally have a diagnosis and hopefully we will get one in a few weeks.

((prayers for you, Lori H))

Hi Lori H.:

It sounds like following the 2E newsletter on problem solving and showing work will cut down on some of the arguments and tension!

Good luck!

bk

The 'showing work' point is interesting. It's fine if they have all the answers correct, but if they don't, then how can you help them? Also, for homeschoolers, if there is any plan for the child to ever be mainstreamed ever again, most places require work to be shown (particularly as they get older, because of cheating). So it's such a good habit to show work, regardless of the system. Also, most teachers give partial credit for work. Again, showing work is important. The child can still write down a calculation he did in his head and say he did so, it just should be part of the process I think.

Dear Calizephr,
everything you say above sounds so reasonable, but

If the child is young (prepuberty),
justice-loving (pay an extreamly high emotional price to do things that don't make sense) and
working years behind readiness level,

doing an action to 'learn a good habit' is an uphill battle that the child may not be developmentally able to take on. KWIM? Sure if your child is willing, it's a good idea, but I'm not sure I would fight a child over it until they show signs of readiness.

Hey my son, now aged 11.5, and just starting to show the physical changes, blew his hair dry last night, to see if it would look good that way. I would say that once a child is willing to do something so meaningless as spending time primping, then they are ready to show their Math work 'for practice.' Globally I've noticed that he really has a whole new appreciation for doing meaningless things just to 'not make waves!' Yippee! I wouldn't have guessed it would ever happen, but yes, they do get boosts from physical development from time to time.

Grinity,
I see what you're saying. Like I said, I am very interested in this (not from the standpoint of me thinking I know all the answers) because I have my own 2e and I am also a math tutor, and I definitely have had some very gifted 2e's (and young!) in my classes. I just want to help them.

But I'm interested in your thoughts on showing work. Do you think it's meaningless, if one can get the correct answer?

I did actually convince my own thick skulled, 2eish, boy to show his work, as needed, but spending time with him on ALEKS.com math age 9, just for a few weeks. He very quickly figured out that if he showed and checked his work, and got three answers correct in a row, that he got new questions to answer. It was afterschool, and he was finally moving into his readiness level.

I'm saying that if you want a child to show their work, give them work that is hard enough that they need to show their work to get the right answer.

I believe that showing work is actually quite important but for 2e kids it can have a very high emotional cost, so try to look at it from their perspective.

I think it's Susan Weinbrenner who suggested classrooms offer a "5 hardest" alternative to that pageful of Math problems. It goes something like this: When the children get that pageful of problems, 5 have astericks. If the child can do those 5, correctly, then they get credit for the whole thing. Seems like if you want to demand that they show their work on those 5, or offer to allow them one mistake IF they did show their work on all 5, and you can see that it was a little mistake, but not involved with the concepts you are currently working on.

Does that help?
Grinity

I agree, when kids can pass a 'mini test' they should not go through the grueling task of a pile of computations.
Grin, I'll keep it short and simple, I am dyslexic. I love working with these kids because believe me, I feel for them. I came up with ways to become proficient at math- after pitfalls and struggles, and of course no help back in the day. Each child is different, too. Generally I find they love finding my backwards numbers though.

As a homeschooler, I have worried a lot about what would happen if my child with a motor learning and handwriting disability had to go back to our public school. After I got my son's diagnosis, I talked to my special ed teacher friend about it. She has known my son for several years because she has two gifted sons of her own and they are both good friends of my son. They are also in the same musical theater class and one of them is in Cub Scouts with my son, so my friend has witnessed my son's difficulty in learning new dances and the difficulty with drawing and handwriting and everything. Since my son has spent the night at her house with her kids and we have gone to Cub Scout camps and slept in a tents next door to each other, she even knows about his other sensory issues and difficulty sleeping. Because of her job at the school and her masters degree in special ed, as well as being the parent of gifted boys, she recognizes and understands my son's difficulties better than most people. Some people refuse to believe that my son has enough of a disability to need accommodation because he doesn't "look" like he has a disability. Some people, even teachers who should know about this kind of thing, can't understand how you could possibly have a learning disability of any kind and also be gifted academically.

She told me there are teachers at that school that still refuse to provide accommodations for kids with dyspraxia and dysgraphia. One teacher sent a child to her who supposedly had trouble spelling. Yet, my friend tested the child orally and the child was an excellent speller. The teacher refused to test the child orally. There are teachers at the school who think a child must do the "fill in the bubble" tests just like the kids without these difficulties instead of letting them circle the answers. It seems that education is not really the priority at the school. Making kids fit in the box is. My friend confirmed that my son would not be allowed to learn as much as he is learning at home at that school. She agrees that my child deserves to learn and if he needs to learn differently, then he should be allowed to learn differently. Since we know it is very difficult to change some teachers' attitudes about the need for alternative learning methods, we will continue to homeschool. I sometimes talk about these things on teachers.net hoping that maybe a few teachers will learn more about hidden disabilities and the need for understanding and accommodations for kids like mine.

My husband just increased life insurance on me so if something happens to me, my husband will have to quit his job and take over homeschooling our son. My husband and I don't even go out together without our son because I worry that something will happen to us and my son would no longer be able to get an appropriate education. We will do what we have to do so that our child can learn and reach his potential.

For now, my son is doing a minimal amount of math because we are focusing on the spelling bee (about 500 of the advanced words left to go out of about 3,300 before Feb. 15) and we have been spending way too much time on literature studies. We have been reading and discussing classic books that I heard about but never had time to read. He can tell you the difference between parody and satire. He loves metaphor and allegory. He notices double entendre and oxymorons that I sometimes miss. He loves books that make him think. We recently read The Giver and he took an online test over the book at sparknotes.com and got 24 out of 25 correct. He likes to talk about the book and then read an online analysis. I think he would score very highly on vocabulary and comprehension tests. I had hoped he could take the Explore this year, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. There was no way I could make him miss the Cub Scout pinewood derby race and he did win two trophies and had such a good time.

My special ed teacher friend is also curious about how high he would test and she told me that she thought it might be a good idea to enroll him school just long enough to have the educational psychologist at the school test him. But I won't do that because he would have to attend school for days before they had to do the testing. My son does not want to go back to school even for a few days because he knows his friend (my special ed teacher's son) had a problem with bullies. His friend told us that he thought my son would be bullied if he went there, just as he was, because he doesn't do sports and is very smart.

Because I told the developmental pediatrician about his "freak and a geek" description of himself, she talked to him about how he felt about his disability. He told her that even though he wasn't able to do physical things as well as other kids his age, he knew that he was at a higher level mentally and he felt good about that. He later told me that he was embarrassed that he said this to the doctor, but I am glad he said it. I think it is even more important for kids with disabilities to be allowed to reach their academic potential. It is a shame that this is not happening in some of our schools.

Lori H,
I am so glad that you and your DH are so committed to your child being able to learn! You Go Girl!
Grinity

Calizephyr,
Sounds like your kids are luck to have you! I hope your school supports you by providing lots of above level material so that you can see exactly where each child is, and at exactly what pace each child is ready to move. Seems to me that some kids may be at two levels in math - one level that discribes what level of abstract thought they are on, and ready to learn with supports such a calculators or multiplication charts, and another level for the rote memoritsation skills. Both need to be addressed in a balanced way.

I got my son to practice his multiplication math facts by showing him the forgiving method of long division - lots of math facts being practiced there!

Of course what works with a bored gifted kid may not be what workes for a 2E child, kwim?

Have you read Weinbrenner's book? If not I highly reccomend it.
Smiles,
Grinity