This is new way of education
HOME schooling is not easy. It’s difficult trying to stay on top of all the work the children are given to do at home, and it can be tough when you have more than one child. We have 4 children and while the older two, teenagers, can mostly do their own work, we do check what they are doing each day because we know that if we just left them to it, they would find a way to skive off and do as little as possible!
Our younger two, aged 8 and 12 years, need a lot of attention and my husband spend a lot of time with them on schoolwork each day. Our 12 year old also has Dyslexia, which puts additional pressure on the home schooling. She has trouble with reading and spelling in particular, which makes schoolwork difficult for her.
We found home schooling very challenging at the start of isolation, as she would get frustrated when she got stuck on a word or got the spelling of a word wrong. This caused her to feel upset and frustrated and it was hard to deal with. We wanted to make home schooling easier for her, to reduce her stress and also, honestly, to reduce our stress too.
The first thing we did was speak with her teacher to explain she was feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work and the difficulty of some of it. He advised that she aim to do around 70%, to ease the workload for her and to make it more manageable. Straight away, that helped.
Next thing we did was introduce a reader pen into schoolwork. Reader pens are so brilliant, especially for children with Dyslexia. When she is reading and she comes across a word she does not understand, she simply runs the pen across the word on the page of the book, and the pen reads the word aloud to her. It also has a dictionary function, so she can get the meaning of the word too. You can check out the pens at www.scanningpens.co.uk and for sales advise and user support, contact Brian at www. compupacit He will answer your questions and help you decide if a reader pen would be good for your child.
If you or your child is feeling over whelmed, don’t be afraid to speak with the teacher about it. The most important thing is that your child is healthy and well. They need exercise, play time, activities, good food and plenty of sleep. If they don’t get all the work done that’s ok. Their mental and physical health is the main priority. For more tips and support for families during this strange and worrying time, log onto free parenting website, www. mams.ie
Siobhan O’Neill White