We're Back

I had to go out of town last week, so the Lark's dad (hereinafter referred to as "Daddy") took over the grayschooling. They kept up with math and calendar activities. They also worked on strengthening their cores.

The Lark is doing really well with math. He can comprehend and, in some cases, even verbalize concepts that eluded him before. I think his progress is partly due to all the work we've been doing on comprehension and building mental models. I think I have also developed a more effective teaching strategy. I introduce a concept with a hands-on activity (not by explaining it), then I just leave it alone. I don't push for any kind of mastery; I don't test to make sure he got it. I just introduce it and leave it alone. Then we do another activity involving the same concept the next day. We do the activity once or twice and then move on to something else, whether he seems to have gotten it or not. The next day we'll do another activity. Only once it's clear that he has figured out the concept on his own do I verbalize it or quiz him in any way. When I do it this way, he seems to get everything.

We're also starting to experiment with retelling story songs and nursery rhymes in simple prose as an approach to narrative comprehension. I'm inviting him to join me in the retelling as a way to very gradually help him learn to tell a story. We'll see how this goes.