Are you facing ADD/ADHD?

Sometimes the reasons parents pull children mid-school year has to do with the fact that their children have ADD or ADHD. If your child is in sixth grade and has either of these issues, then it is not news to you. It has been something you have been dealing with for a long time. Sometimes things just come to a head, and home schooling becomes an option you might not have considered before.
That is what happened to us. Public schools are designed to educate 20-25 children per class, all in the same style, and all at the same pace. For my daughter that was very difficult. Everything was a distraction, she could read above level, but her writing was below level. Her brain moves too fast for her to be “bothered” with writing things down, so she doesn’t.
Add to that a bit of defiance, you see, she does not do busy work. Period. It got to the point that she would ask if an assignment was for credit. If it was, she might do it. If it was not, she would not do it. Her philosophy on that was, if it was important enough for her to do the assignment, then it was important enough for the teacher to grade it and record it for credit. How do you argue with that logic? As you might have guessed, “do it because I said so”, just doesn’t work around here!

Visual learners are one type of student. They tend to learn by seeing. Computer programs and online curriculum are a good choice for these students. Visual learners tend to not want to repeat lessons so things like spelling lists that take all week with a test on Friday are usually not a good fit.
What visual learners like is fast paced, colorful, and energetic curriculum. So if your child is a visual learner, consider moving to something other than the traditional school based curriculum of text books and workbooks. Look for engaging programs that have a lot of movement and energy.
Visual learners sometimes have trouble with tasks like reading and writing. I know that my daughter has a lot of trouble with writing anything. It is not necessarily because she can’t create, but because she cannot create on paper as fast as her brain can think. If your child has this problem also, stay tuned, I will give you a couple of suggestions for things that have worked for us!