Challenging ourselves while we learn can sometimes be frustrating. Learn tips and strategies to gauge your scholar's frustration and help your child when you're sensing that they're frustrated. This video was designed for Springboard Afterschool Workshop 1 participants.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
When you sit down to help your scholar read it's very important to monitor their frustration. Now, frustration is part of the learning process. When we challenge ourselves, it can be frustrating, and that's good it's a sign of growth! However, you want to help your child have the right amount of frustration. You see, each child has a learning zone, it's where they're feeling challenged and a little discomfort. But, if frustration boils over, they will move into this red zone, stop learning, and start feeling angry, upset, overly frustrated! You've probably seen this happen. So, if you see your scholars frustrations starting to rise, what can you do? Ask a question! That's how we support Springboard scholars. Let's look at how you can use questions to help lower frustration. In this clip, the scholar's having trouble with the word soothsayer, which is especially hard for someone missing his two front teeth! Watch what his father does. That's a hard word. So, let's see what can we do to figure this out. That's a big word, let's maybe chop it in half. What does that sound like? "Sooth!" Sooth, kind of like tooth. Sooth, and then sound this one out. "Sayer." Sayer, yep! So, all together, it's "Soothsayer!" Soothsayer, soothsayer, so try that whole sentence again. And try to hit that word. "But why are these things happening asked the soothsayer." When this father saw his son is frustrated and leaving the learning zone, he knew it was time for some adult support. Asking questions is very important when reading with children, so he asked a question to coach his child. Because he had seen his child struggling, he quickly defused the situation by modeling an answer to the question himself. Now, when kids are struggling it's good to assure them that you understand what they are doing is not easy. That's why this father began his question by acknowledging the difficulty. And, of course, after his child had figured out the tricky word, he encouraged him to reread. Acknowledge, ask, answer, encourage rereading. Let's see those four steps again. In this clip, the father can see his son is having trouble reading like a storyteller. The child is forgetting to pay attention to punctuation. "He said so, the old woman said, so we have to save it. Wait, let's stop for a second. We have to look at the punctuation, to know how to say these say these sentences. So, what is that? "A question mark." A question mark, okay so how would you say the word so as a question? "So?" So? So? The old woman said. And then this has what kind of mark here? "A, uh, exclamation point." Okay so what does that mean if something is important, yeah, it's loud. So, she said she would say and he said so we have to save it! Right? "So, we have to save it!" So we have to save it! Alright, let's let's try that again. "He said, so..." Acknowledge, ask, answer, encourage rereading. You may want to write these words on a sticky note and place it in whatever book you're reading. That way, you'll have a plan to help your child when you see some signs of frustration. This is a constant cycle in reading. Helping and backing-off, helping and backing-off, as you help your scholar hover between their learning zone and their overly frustrated zone. By going through this simple process, acknowledge, ask, answer, and encourage rereading, you can diffuse frustration and help your child have a positive reading experience!