When we work with students on homework, there's a clear trend. Only work that involves putting pen or pencil to a piece of paper they have to turn in is "real work." When they are "required" to do silent reading, they only do it when they have to write down their times in a reading log that gets turned in. And studying for tests? Those conversations go something like this:
"Did you study for your science test tomorrow?"
"Can you quiz me?"
(After quizzing on three terms or topics, about which the student knows nothing) "Why don't you study and then someone can quiz you."
"How can I study if no one is quizzing me?"
When forced to "study" without someone to test them, they will page through a book (even a math book, just perusing, no working). Or, if they have a study guide (usually filled with terms they should define and questions they should answer), they'll call it studying when they stare at paper. Often, they won't even write on the study guide unless we force them to ("But we don't have to turn this in! It's just for us! To study!" they'll complain.) Even things as simple as studying for spelling and vocabulary tests are activities that require just looking: students stare at the lists as if some kind of magic will imprint the information onto their brains. We have to cajole them to write the words out, make flashcards, or otherwise engage the material in a way that might push them to learn.
And this is why my girl was in her room crying on Thursday night.
She had lost her morning TV for the next week and just by a hair. She has a spelling test every Friday, so Thursday nights we go over the words -- words that have gotten progressively harder as first grade has progressed. Every week, I ask her to study the words during homework time at STAR (her after school program). Almost every week she forgets. She missed 2/10 on the last test before Winter Break -- dropping that last t from both "stretch" and "scratch." So, this week, the first week back to school, I reminded her that she had to study. She finished her entire homework packet at STAR on Monday. Her assignment (from me) for Tuesday: write and practice the spelling words (they are working on long A so the 10 main words were pretty easy, like "skate" and "take," with a few irregulars like "right," then a sentence: "We skate on the path," and three bonus words: "deliver," "shouted," and "tiptoed").
My overall goal, as you can imagine, is too teach her how to study -- and to teach her to responsible for her own studying, instead of reliant on someone else to quiz her in order to prepare for an exam.
When I asked her to write the words out on Tuesday during homework, she said that the STAR coaches wouldn't let her just write the words because it wasn't "really" homework, so I wrote a note: "Dear STAR, Please let Quinn write out her spelling words so she can study them during homework time. Thank you."
At that point, I felt like I as the only one in the world who could even conceive of the idea that reviewing her spelling words was actual homework.
And so the week went:
Tuesday night: did you study your words? No, she forgot.
Wednesday night: did you study your words? No, she skipped homework because she had basketball and wanted to go to story time (plus, she was done with her homework anyway).
Thursday night: did you study your words? She grinned, "I wrote them." Then she added slyly, "I just copied them." Sure enough, in her folder was one scrap of paper, with each word (not the sentence, not the bonus words, just the first 10 words) written once.
I flipped the paper over and started to quiz her. She got the first 10 right. I read the sentence. She hesitated, "Shoot, I didn't study the sentence or the bonus words."
I warned her then and there that there would be a consequence if she did not get them right. She got the sentence. After a tense moment, she got "deliver." She even got "shouted" after a long whispered debate about "is it o-w like 'shower' or o-u like 'about?'" And then she spelled tiptoed with an extra letter: "tiptoued." Had she even written the word ONE TIME over the course of the week, she would have gotten it, but she didn't.
I told her no morning TV for a week (she usually nabs about 15 minutes of "Lion Guard" or "Liv and Maddie" each morning while she eats breakfast) and asked her to write "tiptoed" 5 times. About halfway through, the tears started pouring out, and then she went to her room to really sob.
In part, kids just don't get how to study. In part, they are just deeply resistant to doing it. That my girl chose not to write the sentence or the bonus words, when she knew that both I and her teacher expected her to know them, is case in point. She was not studying to learn or to improve her knowledge of the words, but to satisfy the bare minimum of what she had to turn in to me.
The challenge for us, as educators and parents, is to convince kids that studying, even when you don't have to turn anything in, is useful, and that reviewing material can refresh your memory and improve your grades. My girl is clearly not there yet. She stuck, both too lazy and too cocky to want to study. But, we're in for the long haul and I'm hopeful that by the time she gets to middle school, I won't be repeating the same debates we have with our middle school students. I'm hoping that, by then, she will have realized, for herself, that there's a benefit to studying, even when no one else can see the work that you're doing. Fingers crossed!
