Tackling reading, writing and maths difficulties at home.

Mother, teacher and assistive technology specialist, Mary Wilcox is our guest writer in this article. Currently isolated at home with her two children, Mary is developing strategies for teaching her kids and in this article she is sharing some with you that focus on reading, writing and maths difficulties.

This article is brought to you by Claro Software.

There are lots of opinions about home schooling during lock-down ranging from telling you not to worry, don’t try to be a teacher and focus on your child’s well-being to providing a week packed full of lessons covering the whole curriculum. Every household is different and it depends on lots of variables: how much time you have, what resources are available, how willing your children are to be taught by you, how much knowledge you have of the curriculum – very challenging times.  

I used to be a primary school teacher and I have two children Connie (5) and Mack (10). My children aren’t dyslexic but my daughter is 5 so she is learning to read and write and my son doesn’t enjoy writing. I want to share with you a few ideas I have using my experience as a teacher and a mum and also my knowledge of assistive technology.

I have focused on primary aged children as this is what I have experience of but I’m sure that many of these ideas would work with older children.

1.       Make a weekly timetable and try to stick to it.

For the first week, I jumped between working and teaching which was terrible as I felt like I should be teaching when I was working and working when I was teaching. Now we make a timetable each week that includes working with me, independent work and free time (sometimes on screens). I work 24 hours per week so I have to leave them to work on their own which is really hard. I try and think about what it’s like at school; the teacher doesn’t spend hours working one-to-one with your child so they are used to working independently. The timetable helps all of us see what we’re doing. I tell Connie what’s she’s doing while we have breakfast so she knows what to expect. We tend to do maths and English in the morning.  

2.       Don’t always expect them to handwrite.

I know some children like to write but I know lots more that don’t. So I suggest that you shouldn’t always insist that your child completes his/her work by handwriting it. It is of course, really important that they practice their handwriting but you need to question the purpose of the work they are doing. I find that getting them to handwrite their answers for grammar work is a good idea. Often grammar or phonic work only involves writing one sentence or word at a time so there are less things to think about. When writing stories there is so much to think about so adding forming the letters legibly and spelling correctly on top of structuring the story, punctuating it correctly and using a range of vocabulary makes it really hard work! Instead, you could write for them or they could dictate their ideas into a phone, tablet or laptop. It’s much easier and quicker this way and mistakes are more obvious. Once the story, or part of it has been dictated, having it read out using text-to-speech software such as ClaroRead helps with editing. It’s still their story using their own words but the additional stress of writing has been taken away.  

3.       Take it in turns to read.

When listening to your child read take it in turns; Afterall it’s better for them to read a little bit rather than not at all. Also, if they are doing a reading comprehension don’t always insist on them reading it. These activities are to develop their understanding of the text not a reading test. Either read it to them or use Claro Scanpen or ClaroPDF (which you can download onto your phone or tablet) or ClaroRead for Windows or Mac. This way, they can listen and focus on meaning. Connie isn’t a fluent reader yet and having the text read with highlighting really helps her to follow the text and subtly helps her recognize the words. It also means that I don’t have to sit with her while she reads. My children use ClaroPDF on an iPad so that they can type answers into the document. This way, I don’t have to print the worksheet or booklet saving lots of paper and printer toner!  

4.       Make learning a game.

It gets a bit boring always writing in a book or completing a worksheet. I try and vary what we do. I made some times table grids for Mack because he hates learning them. I time how long he takes to put the numbers in the right place and he tries to get quicker. Although he continues to hate learning tables, I have used them with lots of children successfully (I have attached them to this document if you would like to print them off). I also throw a ball and ask maths questions. I focus on one times table a day. I don’t mean the 7 times table, I mean 6 x 7 on Monday, 7 x 7 on Tuesday. They are tiny steps but in the right direction. We sometimes use chalk on the patio instead of using paper and practice phonics writing words with paint on our fingers. I have competitions such as who can think of the most adjectives in one minute or change the sentence by rolling a dice. Each number requires something different to be added to the sentence – an adverb, subordinate clause, a fronted adverbial, change a noun.  

5.       Let them be the teacher.

I often used to use the children in my class as teachers for a few reasons;

1.       The rest of the class liked having something explained by their friend

2.       It helped me assess whether they understand the concept they are teaching – you can’t teach something if you don’t understand it yourself.

3.       The child loved being called Miss Green or Mr Smith and it was a confidence boost.

So, I still do this when home schooling. It’s a bit different when working one-to-one but it works well especially in maths but also when writing. I am the pupil and Mack is the teacher. I make mistakes to check that he notices and understands and I use questioning carefully to teach him but indirectly.

6.       Reflect on their work.

When I’m working with my children and also when I was a teacher, it is important to reflect on how much progress they have made. So take a look at the work they did a few days ago and compare it to today’s work. You can ask questions to reinforce their learning and then build on it. The main reason is that I don’t feel that I’m doing enough teaching but when we look back on everything they’ve done, it makes me feel better and probably the children too.  

7.       Learning for a purpose.

We follow the suggested activities that school send by email but you may as well link their learning to what it going on in your home. It was my husband and Mack’s birthday a few days ago so we baked a cake together. We are really lucky to live next to a fishing lodge with nesting geese so we investigated geese and drew pictures.   I hope that these ideas have been useful and please don’t think that my home schooling is perfect – it is not at all. My children are addicted to screens which is a constant battle, Mack would happily spend 24 hours a day on Roblox, Minecraft and YouTube. They argue with each other and are really messy. But, when I can send them back to school I will know that they have at least picked up a pen a few times and have kept their brains ticking over a bit.

If these tips from Mary have been useful to you then you may be interested in a webinar that she is delivering with her children, Connie and Mack on the 7th May sharing further ideas that help with home schooling children with dyslexia.