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Sample Consultation
"L" is a homeschooling mom of two boys. Both have AS. She has been struggling with her oldest- "A" especially in the areas of math and english. He has poor fine motor skills and struggles with the mechanics of writing. Last year she used "prepackaged curriculum X", but found that worksheets produce meltdowns. Here is her consultation:
Original Message
FROM: XXXXXXXX@yahoo.com
To: XXXXXX@innernet.net
Rachael,
Here are the results of the tests you sent. I have no idea what you will see in them, but I can't wait to hear back from you. (I'm really curious!) Oh, regarding the teaching methods, I liked the sound of unschooling the best, but it is not quite structured enough for me. Unit studies sounded nice, but seem like too much work! I also liked some of the Charlotte Mason, but not enough to use it. What kind of teaching method am I looking for???!!! As far as philosophy goes we are slightly religious (Jewish background), but feel that parents are primarily guides for their children. We teach our children how to think for themselves and make sure they have made the best decision. We want them to learn to stand on their own two feet, but they need our guidance until they are mature enough to do that. Does that help?
Vark* scores: A (10) K (7) L (mom)
Visual: 7 6 10
Aural: 8 9 9
Read/Write: 4 3 13
Kinesthetic: 6 6 11
Intelligence types:
Linguistic: 2 5 7
Logical-Math: 6 4 4
Spatial: 1 4 4
Bodily/Kines: 7 2 3
Musical: 7 7 6
Interpersonal: 4 2 7
Intrapersonal: 2 7 4
Naturalist: 4 6 2
L___.
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L___,
Here are your personal learning profiles,
K_____ is a strong musical learner. He will memorize well anything set to music. He will be most comfortable learning with you reading directions carefully aloud and having him repeat them back. He needs pictures to guide him and hands-on projects to show what he has learned. He also learns better on his own than with you hovering over him, but needs to talk about it afterwards. "Just tell me what to do and let me do it," is a statement you will hear in the future, as is, "Look what I did, mom!" ;~)
A_____ is strongest working with his hands or whole body. He is also most comfortable learning with you reading directions carefully aloud. He needs pictures to guide him with hands-on projects as well.. His projects need to be more labor-intensive than K's though, and must actually guide his learning rather than demonstrate it. Doing something with his hands reinforces what he has learned and makes it stick in his head... he learns better through repeated activity than through memorization. He is very logical so it has to make sense to him before he can do it. Though he is older, he needs more input from you- mostly in the form of you being impressed with his projects and having him explain why he chose a certain way of doing it. Since he has trouble with fine motor skills and writing, you may want to offer him sticker worksheets with 30 possible answers for a page of 25 math problems.
Neither boy shows what he has learned well through written expression. This is why worksheets produce meltdowns. Having them dictate what they learned or do a project to demonstrate it will work better. Let them get used to writing through a small "blurb" rather than a composition.
Regarding the teaching methods: your instincts are accurate and should be trusted. Both boys would benefit from a modified blend of unschooling and unit studies. Use your science and history textbooks as guides and allow other subjects to revolve around a topic of interest within that week's lesson. This way, you have not abandoned entirely the guidance and security that textbooks offer you, but you are allowing the boys' education to expand to the world around them as they need! Here is how a particular week might look:
The boys are studying birds in science. A decides to make a birdhouse for a specific type of bird. You help by researching the bird and let him choose the materials, etc. In his "project book" (a cheap, pocket front 3 ring binder), he includes a picture of the birdhouse being built and the finished house with a bird in front of it. He also includes 3 sentences about the birdhouse he made and why he chose the color or style he chose. He may include any other information on the bird that he finds interesting and color the bird's habitat on a map. Instead of doing a math worksheet one day, he may include the dimensions of the birdhouse and measurements he took, figuring out the area, perimeter of each side, volume, etc to reinforce addition and multiplications skills and make math logical to him.
K may instead do a picture of the bird and its egg from the internet. He can also fill in the blanks with information on the bird's scientific name, preferred food, etc and color a picture of the bird from enchantedlearning.com. If he knows a song about birds, he may sing it to you, or write his own song about it to a popular tune and include the lyrics on the page. Both boys may choose to set aside the history book for the week while you read aloud about John James Audubon. K may include Audubon on a timeline in his project book, while A may act out a scene from Audubon's life (whole body activity to support his strong Kinesthetic intelligence style.)
*L opted to use the VARK and the LRDC Multiple Intelligences free online assessments to get the raw data for her family's learning profiles. These are two of a number of the possible assessments that may be used to get the raw data.
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