A research project was due for Michael's Bible class. He did the research and copied the passage word for word. When I told Jim he needed to re-write it in his own words. That's when the writers block started. He sat for nearly an hour just staring at his research. When I tried prompting him to write something he began crying, saying he couldn't think of what to write. I started getting very frustrated with Jim. Certainly it couldn't be that hard, could it? When I was just about to explode from frustration, I started a game of Yahtzee with him. I kept quiet during the first round, and the tears stopped. Then with each turn, we talked about the research he had done and sentence by sentence, he came up with ways to put them in his own words. He was numbering his sentences to make sure he came up with four to make a complete paragraph. By the end of the yahtzee game, his report was finished.
This is another amazing part about homeschooling. You can use whatever methods necessary to teach your child. Today it was yahtzee, other days it's throwing a ball back and forth. We're getting there. Hut I know deep down that if he were still in the public school system, he would still be shedding tears or taking a bad grade on his report because his brain does not work the same way other kids brains do.
