Sometimes it is harder to not know the answer in front of your parents. It can be embarrassing. Maybe a tudor for homework once a week would help her feel more comfortable.I must say I dont remember doing much HW at that age, but I struggled a bit in elementary, especally after becoming mainstreamed. It does hurt your self esteam and the parents as well. Shes simply young and a bit behind with her peers. Thos this will cause trouble for a long time to come, she will catch up. I think she just needs a little more attention as far as the teaching goes, more examples. It was not enough for me to sit their and be told what rhyming was, i needed examples, and lots of them, even hands on if possible, verbal learning was a challenge, as auditory processing to this day is my main social issue and is really the only thing that kinda gives me away, even as an adult.
She just needs more time and to be shown how to do it a little longer then some of her peers, eventually it will click it did for me. I definatly was known to just put answers out their also, its frustration, and I assumed if I said the correct answer eventually my mom and dad would say I was right, not understanding that I need to be right the first time in order to prove I understood.
Good luck, I have faith she will understand soon enough. Keep working with her on it and have the teacher understand that shes having a hard time.
My son had difficulty with learning rhyming words. Dr. Seuss and other rhyming books didn't do the trick. I found a "Find The Rhyme" puzzle that also didn't help much. I ended up getting "What's the Rhyme? Sorting Houses" from Toys to Grow on. He picked up on the concept quickly. Our senior VB/ABA therapist and our speech language pathologist both liked it a lot. Also, it's well made.
http://www.toystogrowon.com/sku957
I hope things get better for your daughter soon.
My dd is 5 as of July and just started Kindergarten. She gets a homework folder every Friday and needs to turn it in the following Wed. Tonight we worked on her last bit of homework. It was a simple checklist, like name 5 things you can make with an apple and name 6 children in your classroom. She struggles so hard with these simple things. Its like she doesnt understand the questions until I help get her started by giving her some answers. One of the questions really upset her tonight and brought her to tears. It breaks my heart when I see this, I get all wound up with worry.
It started with the question "write two words that rhyme with tree." She said, "tree, bee." I think it was memorized because she could not come up with another word. She just started throwing words out like pumpkin, leaf, seed...etc. Nothing rhymed and she seemed to not understand what rhyming meant at all...but she could say "rhyming is two words that sound the same." If she knew that, why couldnt she answer? Or, did she memorize this and have no clue of the meaning???
I could tell she was holding back the tears and I could see she was frusterated. I felt so, so bad for her. Eventually, I just gave her three words and one of the words rhymed with tree, she had to pick out the word that rhymed. I basically gave her the answer.
She acted let down and seemed so sad. I am so worried that this will hurt her self esteem.
Does anyone have similar problems? How do you handle/deal with this? I am lost and I want to help her and boost her self esteem.
Kids who are aware of their shortcomings are often higher-functioning, but at a cost to their self-esteem.
My son seems pretty much blissfully aware of his shortcomings, although he did once state matter-of-factly that he needs more time to learn than other kids and hadn't heard if from an adult as far as I know. Sometimes tasks seem so hard to him that he doesn't even want to try, though.
We have the same kind of trouble with those open-ended type homework questions. I wish I had an answer for you. If I learn about any strategies, I'll let you know.
At a seminar here in Norway, an autism consultant/mom said that kids with autism have a hard time generated more than 1-2 options, and when these options fail, they are at a loss. She added, all they earn from trial and error is that they are prone to error.
As far as rhyming goes, it does sound like she doesn't have the concept down pat, but has memorized the definition and examples. With both my kids, I was able to teach the concept of rhyming by reading lots and lots of Dr. Suess books with them every night for a couple weeks. My youngest son still makes the mistake of thinking a shared first letter is also a rhyme (like tub rhymes with train because they both start with t).
Good luck with everything.
norway mom, good post. Thats funny cause I know in school I hated having to come up with multiple answers, as I beleived at the time their should only be 1 single correct answer to a problem. Sounds like your kid is very high functioning as well and I bet tho he may have a hard time getting it like I once did or allways worried kid does now, in the end they will catch up and do great!I always make homework as fun as possible. That's far more important than anything else imo. In this situation I'd throw out heaps of rhyming words for tree and then put 'purple monkey' or something absurd at the end just for the giggles. Then move on to another simple rhyming word 'hat'..mat, cat, rat, sat, that, fat,,.. 'silly hippo'... giggles, 'hat: bat, vat, pat....', on to another example... till she joins if. Friends from class, the same, just go through the names of kids in the class, leaving the ones she sits naxt to til last and throwing in a name like 'Humplebergers' in the middle. You have to know she knows the kids names first and often our kids take a while to pick up the other kids names.
If the penny doesn't drop just give her the answers so their won't be a feelling of failure and keep in mind that she still needs to be taught that skill. It's important for us to know where our kids weaknesses are and this a good way of finding out. How will we help them learn if we don't know where their problems lie?
She prob just needs a bit more exposure to these skills than other kids, keep it positive and fun and learning won't be upsetting for either of you.
Good Luck.
I'm just going to throw this out there, but I learned rhyming words because my father had a rhyming nickname for each of us and I just thought that was hilarious. He would come up with some of the silliest names, but I got the concept of rhyming and I don't know if I would have gotten it so easily if he hadn't turned it into a game. The bo bana song comes to mind too.