Jennie Sjursen 0:00
Now that school is started again, so of the homework battles. At the end of the day, we're both tired and running out of patience. How can I make the homework process better for the both of us?
Jennie Sjursen 0:11
I'm Jenny Sjursen, ex-special educator turned dyslexia interventionist. It wasn't so long ago, that I too, was overwhelmed by balance literacy versus structured literacy, education speak, and everything in between. Fast forward after many, many hours of self driven education. And you'll see I've built a thriving dyslexia practice helping students from ages six to 18. My specialties, working with quote unquote difficult almost always to the student, and breaking down the complexities of dyslexic to everyday language strategies and action steps.
Jennie Sjursen 0:49
In our last episode, prepping your dyslexic child for the new school year, eight steps to a smooth start, we talked about strategies you can use to help make the start of this school year less tumultuous than previous years. Step number six was to develop a homework routine. I thought in this episode, we could dive deeper into how to set up an effective homework routine. And I came up with six steps. Before we get into the six steps for setting up a homework routine. I'm going to say something that might be controversial to some, I don't believe in homework, or at least most homework. I worked in self contained classrooms with mostly autistic and dyslexic students.
Jennie Sjursen 1:30
By the end of the day, their brains were fried, and no meaningful work was going to take place at home. They were done for the day when I walked out of my classroom, there was also a life to be lived outside of the classroom, which contains equally important learning experiences. And to go along with that, there is no research that conclusively finds homework to be beneficial. The majority of the time homework is sent home by teachers because parents expect it and get upset when they don't see it in March 2019. There's an excellent article in The Atlantic called the cult of homework by Joe Pinsker, which is beautifully breaks this down. So now that I've said my piece, let's get down into the six steps.
Jennie Sjursen 2:13
One, dedicate and set up a place. Set up a place in the house that can be your child's own dedicated work office space. Where depends on your child do they need a calm place without distractions? Don't put it in the kitchen or main living room area. And be mindful of wall art too much can be visually distracting and make some students feel uneasy, a sensory overload kind of thing? Do they need background noise or a headset? I personally have the TV on in my office all day. Not because I watch it. In fact, I can't even see it unless I turn 90 degrees to the right and look up. It's up on the top shelf. Weirdly, just having it playing in the background distracts my ADHD brain enough that it makes it easier to focus on what I'm working on. Unless it's something I'm interested in and then all bets are off.
Jennie Sjursen 3:00
Headphones for me makes the background noise to close and distracting. Ask your child what ambient noise makes them the most comfortable. Does your child need to stand or walk around a lot where they work. I had one student that the only way I could get him to read was if he paced back and forth in the back of the classroom at the same time. Does your child like to rock and move in their chair? Consider a wobble chair or an exercise ball. Do they need a fidget and this one can be tricky. fidgets can be distracting, but some students legitimately learn better with them. Me personally, our pencil fidgeter always holding rolling flicking a pencil between my fingers. And it has to be a pencil and it can't be too short. Otherwise that becomes a distraction. My role in the classroom with fidgets was as long as you can put out quality work while using it, you can keep it if it became the main attraction, it had to be put away.
Jennie Sjursen 3:55
Once the setup is perfected. Make sure the workspace has everything your child may need a calculator extra pens, pencils, paper, laptop, tablets, chargers, etc. You know what I'm talking about to establish a routine. Again, this is something individual to each child, one child may come home and want to dive right into the homework. Just get it done attitude. Another child might want a snack and a quick bike ride or time outside for 3040 minutes, and then come inside to work. Whatever you decide, make it routine every day the same thing. No surprises. I would also keep parameters in mind. Do you need your child to have their homework done before sports practice or dinner? factor that in to the overall routine? Three? Is it reasonable? Take a look at the homework. Is it just busy work or too difficult for your child to manage at home? Or does it just take up way too much time?
Jennie Sjursen 4:54
When school son work home they often have in mind the 10 Minute Rule, the 10 Minute Rule goes like this. In first grade, a student should have 10 minutes of homework a day. Each year, an additional 10 minutes is added on. So a second grader would have 20 minutes of daily homework. And by 12th grade the student would have 120 minutes of homework a day. A student with dyslexia can take hours longer to finish one piece of homework. One way to manage this is to start writing down on the actual homework how long it is taking your child to complete, or how long it took your child to get as far as they did. This is data that can be used for their IEP, and can lead to accommodations specific to their homework.
Jennie Sjursen 5:38
Use the 10 Minute Rule to help you figure out how much time is too much time for organizing chunk work. This can be part of the routine while your child is having a snack, pull out the homework and look it over. Then have your child help you organize it. How do you organize it is up to you and your child? What makes the most sense for both of you? Is it by subject and then due date, or how long you estimate it will take and get done. Everybody has a different system go with what works best for you. Many dyslexic students have a difficult time with organization, especially if they also have ADHD and time blindness calendars can become a key tool in this step.
Jennie Sjursen 6:21
Placing the due dates on a calendar literally becomes a graphic organizer, they can refer back to five create a plan of attack. Now that you have all the work organized, help them devise a plan of attack. What are they going to tackle first? Usually it's the most important thing and what will they leave for last, and again usually the least important thing once this is figured out, you can put the order on a whiteboard or piece of paper next to them. This way they can erase or cross out something when they are done and visually see how much is left. Six, check and monitor work. Help your child learn to check over their work from mistakes and make corrections or edits. At first the bulk of this may be on you but it should never be you alone.
Jennie Sjursen 7:08
They eventually need to take ownership of this. You can start with something as basic as using cops co p s to have them check their writing. So cop stands for see did they use capitals? Oh, overall appearance? Is it neat and readable? P do they use punctuation or the right punctuation? S? Do they use correct spelling? Now do I expect a dyslexic child always know if they use the correct spelling? Or a dysgraphic? student to have a perfect overall parents to their work? No. But as they grow older and start using their laptops more this becomes did they use spellcheck? Did they use Grammarly? Is the formatting correct, etc.
Jennie Sjursen 7:50
Eventually the ownership becomes more on them. And as always encourage them, give them your love and support. Let them know you see them and all the hard work they're putting in. If you have any further questions about how to set up a homework routine, please feel free to sneak into my inbox. We'd also love your input. What would you like to hear from us in the future? Is there a topic we haven't covered yet? You really want to learn about or do you have a pressing need and you're not really sure how to handle it or move forward?
Jennie Sjursen 8:17
Send us a DM on Instagram or drop us an email at Jenny at literacy on tangled.com That's j e n n i e at literacyuntangled.com. We can't wait to hear from you. Until next time, bye bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode of literacy untangled. If you love this episode as much as I did, head on over and rate and subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you want to continue the conversation or share your takeaways, head on over to our Instagram at literacy untangled and comment on your favorite part. I can't wait to hang out with you again soon. Bye
