Homeschooling Update: Paper vs Screens

Screen time wasn’t working well for our daughters, so we’ve migrated back to worksheets, composition books, and physical textbooks for the majority of their school activities.

Maybe other seven and eight-year-old children can self-regulate their computer or tablet use. Our daughters, however, cannot be left unmonitored for even a few minutes.

I’ve blocked social media on their computers and I’ve done my best to use parental controls and tracking. That’s not really how I want to parent, though.

Instead of working through the work, from top to bottom of the page on Discovery K12 or Khan Academy, the girls drift off onto YouTube via the academic videos embedded on school sites. They see “More videos like this…” and click away.

Blocking YouTube entirely isn’t an option, since so many websites embed video from YouTube and Vimeo. I actually do this, too, as a teacher.

The girls get distracted by technology in other ways, too.

They treat quizzes like games, especially if there are endless retries. They just click randomly until they receive the visual reward. Khan Academy does little confetti tosses when you complete a quiz. That’s all that interests the girls. They click A, B, C, and D and just remember the “right” answer for the next attempt. I’ve randomized questions, trying to stop this behavior.

Gamification clearly works against learning for our children.

I had high hopes for Adventure Academy and Khan Kids. So far, we’re not able to let the girls use these without constant supervision.

The content on Adventure Academy isn’t bad. I like some of the short videos and animations. The content is grade appropriate and should be engaging.

Our girls would rather change the clothes of their avatars for hours and decorate their virtual homes. I need to find a way to limit the game-play aspects of the platform.

Even Word and PowerPoint become games without work.

If my wife and I don’t monitor the oldest daughter, she will spend an hour playing with fonts, colors, shapes, and effects in these programs. Typing a report or creating slide shows for assignments? That doesn’t happen. She hasn’t finished a non-fiction report or slide show yet in eight weeks.

We’ve now purchased the first and third grade sets of “180 Days of…” from Shell Education. Amazon sells the books as sets, which is convenient: 180 Days of First Grade Practice, 1st Grade Workbook Set for Kids Ages 5-7, Includes 6 Assorted First Grade Workbooks [affiliate link]. Each book includes electronic materials, accessed via the Teacher Created Materials website. We’re going to use those extra practice sheets, too.

This isn’t where I expected us to be two months into the school year.

I was going to give little mini-lectures, guide them through some practice, and then let them work on skills for a short time. The point of homeschooling was that by focussing for a few hours, the girls would have more free time to be creative.

I had envisioned a few minutes of review on worksheets, a couple of hours online (at most), and afternoons free for physical education, art, and music. Instead, the girls are spending all day on five or six worksheets daily.

Yes, they spend all day doing a few worksheets.

Understand, our girls have severe ADHD symptoms and some other challenges. They cannot focus easily. The computer is nothing more than a black hole into which they fall and never escape.

This lack of focus is not a computer problem. Technology simply makes it easier for the girls to follow their impulses.

If the oldest is asked to read a book, we will soon find her surrounded by five or six books. She does not finish the basic grade-appropriate book report forms because she gets distracted by other books on her shelves. If there’s anything around to distract her, she will struggle to complete a task.

The girls had special education supports. The executive function deficiencies are diagnosed and eligible for Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). We’re working with professionals to help the girls develop better strategies for school and daily life.

In school, they were the children at the “wiggle table” or the “book bikes” because they’re always moving.

I get it. I have to move constantly. I could never sit for hours on end in school. There’s nothing wrong with needing to be in motion while learning. I don’t like that school treat students with executive function issues as “wrong” or “bad” students.

Yet, students do need to do the work. I understand that.

There is a difference between my “hyperactivity” and their extreme ADHD symptoms. I can hyper-focus for hours on a task. I obsess on getting done and doing things perfectly. Our daughters? They actually “get lost” on the way from our dining room table to their bathroom.

Every morning we ask, “Are you brushing your teeth?”

“The cat was in the hallway.”

“Okay, that’s nice. But did you brush your teeth?

“I don’t remember. Maybe.”

We have checklists on their doors, in the bathroom, and near the study area. We have chore charts. We have a posted school schedule.

For our daughters, online education was overwhelming. So many tempting icons to test! There are so many interesting things to try, even after Daddy locks down one app after another and blocks websites.

I still want the girls to use computers properly and for educational purposes. I want them to explore educational software and office suites. For now, any time they use the computer Mommy or Daddy has to be right next to them.  That’s frustrating, but I suppose we should have anticipated the challenges.

I don’t blame the software developers. I’m sure many children stay on task. It’s possible many do not, too. Not every child is ready for self-directed computer exploration.

In the end, worksheets and composition notebooks are perfectly fine. I’m convinced that writing with pencils on paper will help their fine motor skills, in addition to helping the girls stay on task.