What a wonderful time of year, back to school. My 10 year old son went back to school this Monday, August 9th. He was nervous at first but loves 5th grade already. He is getting to be one of the big fish now. We found out who his teacher was about a month before school started and found out his best friend is in his class again this year. They are two peas in a pod. His friend is also in his resource class as well, although I do not know what the other boy’s diagnosis is, he did not know what Asperger’s was so we know it’s not that.
So now we are back to the routine that we follow in the morning. Being a single parent, I have to handle all the preparations before school, homework help and getting ready for bed at night. One thing that I implemented last year that has been particularly successful was reading time. With each year comes more homework and students are also required to read a certain amount of minutes each day. I really like to encourage this because I like to read and my daughter, a college student now, reads even more than me and in fact is taking on creative writing as her major. My son has shelves full of books and although sometimes it takes a bit to get him back into the swing of things, once he starts daily reading, he really enjoys it. We read several of the classics over the summer, the kids versions, and that was quality family time that just can’t be replaced.
For 5th grade he is required to read 20 minutes a day, that is 5 minutes more than last year. I have him get out of bed an hour before we have to leave for school, eat breakfast (which takes longer than you would imagine), get dressed and then read. He is typically done with breakfast by 8:00 am and we leave at 8:30 so in a perfect world he has time to get dressed, pack his backpack, brush his teeth and still read for a while. He does get distracted pretty easily so I am happy if he gets 10 minutes done in the morning and 10 minutes later in the evening. With the amount of homework, it’s really difficult to put too much more on his plate each day. I also have him practice his typing 10-15 a day. Since his fine motor skills are still lacking, he has what is called an Alpha Smart keyboard in school. He practiced all summer long and improved from 6 wpm to 12 wpm so I want to continue to encourage that skill as well.
Adding the reading minutes on in the morning is helpful because it keeps him from turning on the TV or grabbing his Nintendo DS and playing games in the morning. I really feel it gives him a good head start on his day plus puts him in the learning mode for school and it lessens the amount of work he has to do after school. If your child has reading as part of his or her daily homework, why not give it a shot and let them get part of their assignment out of the way. If they take a bus to school, they can complete that either on the way to or back from school or both.
Thu, Aug 12, 2010
Single Parenting