Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

From Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

A Blog by Dr. Gary G. Brannigan and Dr. Howard Margolis

In our last post, we described the emotional devastation that unsuitable homework assignments can cause children with learning disabilities. For new readers, we present the opening of our last post. For all readers, we then present 6 more suggestions for personalizing homework so that children, parents, and teachers benefit.

Our Last Post

Homework can benefit good readers and writers. But for children who struggle with reading and writing and have difficulty working independently, traditional homework, homework assigned to whole classes and not personalized to match their skill and comfort level, can backfire. Parent reports and the limited research examining the homework problems of struggling learners, suggests that traditional homework often overwhelms, frustrates, and devastates them. As Lawrence Greene observed, the reasons are straightforward:

The prospect of doing homework can be intolerable to children who feel academically incompetent, frustrated, demoralized, and incapable of doing the assigned work. After having spent a miserable day in school, their teachers and parents now insist that they go home and spend an additional two or three hours being miserable. That many of these children try to evade their academic responsibilities is understandable. There is little incentive to children to record their assignments diligently when they believe that they will receive poor grades on their homework no matter how hard they try and that studying for tests is a futile exercise.

If your child struggles with homework, it’s critical that you meet with his teachers to modify his homework. If they don’t modify it to meet his skill and comfort level, if they don’t assign him homework that with moderate effort he can routinely succeed on, he may lose his motivation for school, get angry at the thought of homework, and despondent about his future. His stress and fear my well show itself as one or a combination of what researchers call the fight-flight-freeze response. To resist homework, he may start fights, fidget incessantly with his sneakers or pencils, look into space incessantly, scribble incorrect, irrelevant answers as he thoughtlessly rushes through the assignment, sit and cry. From his point of view, his behavior is rational. He’s reacting to an impossible, intolerable situation in which he can only lose—and he knows it.

To help you help your child’s teachers understand how to modify his homework to promote success, this and two future columns will describe what they can do. As a parent who has a good idea about what’s likely to work with your child, your role is to problem solve with them, and, if they’re unsure of how to help, make suggestions. These columns will offer suggestions you can discuss with your child’s teachers.

As you make suggestions, keep in mind that suggestions are just that—they’re not demands, they’re not orders. And even if your child’s teachers make suggestions with which you disagree, treat his teachers with respect—their job is a lot more complex and harder than most people think, and they, like all of us, need understanding and support. Work to understand their suggestions. See if they can be modified to improve the likelihood of success. If they might work, suggest a 10-day experimental period, with an evaluation meeting on the 11^th day. If they’re unsuccessful, and his teachers found you highly knowledgeable and cooperative, you’ve probably increased their willingness to try your suggestions.

If however, they will not modify your child’s homework to foster his success, you need to gear up for formal advocacy, which probably means documenting everything and sharing your concerns with higher authorities. It may mean hiring an education advocate or attorney—it’s that important. To learn more about the education laws that might help you and strategies for advocating for your child, read chapters 7 through 13 of our book, Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds (www.reading2008.com).

Now, of course, comes the practical concern and question. First, the concern: “I don’t have a master’s degree in special education or reading disabilities. I know my child, but that’s it. I’ve never taught or studied the literature on homework.” Now the question: “What should I suggest?”

Below are six more suggestions for homework based on an article that Patrick McCabe and I published in the Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation. Some of these may work for your child and his teachers. If homework destroys his motivation for school, angers him, or evokes despondence, some of these may reverse the course. If he’s on the verge of the flight-fight-freeze response, some of these may eliminate it.

Six Homework Suggestions for Increasing Students’ Motivation

Before asking teachers to try these suggestions, ask them to make sure your child’s homework assignments are at his independent level, the level at which he can successfully complete them, in reasonable time, without difficulty, frustration, or excessive effort. Reasonable means the assignments should take him no more time or effort to successfully complete than it takes the average learner and that the assignments will not frustrate him. Please note that the suggestions, for your child’s teachers, use the word student rather than the words struggling learner. The reason is simple: All students, including struggling learners, can benefit from them.

1. Discuss paradoxical questions in class. Such questions deal with contradictory issues, such as “How could a highly disliked presidential candidate win an election?” Assign homework that matches the students’ abilities and encourages them to further explore the paradoxical questions.
2. Present a homework assignment by demonstrating a seemingly contradictory event, such as objects defying gravity. After discussing the event, assign related homework. Examples include reading independent-level text about the process and having students make an audio recording that explains the event.
3. Begin homework assignmentsnents in class, using activities that pique interest and engage the students’ knowledge. Activities might include guided imagery, problematic situations, text previews, vocabulary brainstorming, analogies, anticipation guides, previewing, expectation outlines, and reciprocal teacher-student questioning. Positively reinforce students for effective work habits and correct responses. Modify assignments that prove too difficult. Inaugurating homework in class helps ensure that students will succeed on the assignments.
4. Let students choose from several homework assignments once or twice weekly. Ask them to design homework for given topics (e.g., “How about you and Josh sitting down and designing a homework assignment that reviews this chapter?”). To provide direction and structure, provide students with models and guidelines.
5. Develop “study buddies,” pairs of students who help each other with homework. Students who enjoy working with peers can benefit from joint, well-structured homework assignments. Cooperative activities often make assignments interesting and important and positively capitalize on the human penchant for social interaction. Beginning assignments in class allows teachers the opportunity to provide feedback and to assess students’ abilities to work together. After getting parental permission, teachers should encourage students to share telephone numbers to review assignments and help each other after school.
6. Assign homework that makes minimal reading and writing demands. Sample assignments include collecting objects (e.g., miniature airplanes, leaves, photographs of tropical fish), categorizing information (e.g., placing pictures of rural and urban life in different envelopes), making videotapes (e.g., newscasts), taking photographs (e.g., public buildings, storefronts, supermarkets), and conducting interviews (e.g., grandparents, police, supermarket managers, teachers).

References

Greene, L. J. (2002). Roadblocks to Learning. New York: Warner Books, p. 109.

Margolis, H., & McCabe, P. P. (1997). Homework challenges for students with reading and writing problems: Suggestions for effective practice. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 8(1), 41-74.

Howard Margolis, Ed.D. © Reading2008 & Beyond

www.reading2008.com