Dear Loved Ones,
Has the backslide begun? Has the forgetfulness kicked in yet? Is there strangely less homework and more missing/late assignments? Are you getting, "I don't know what that is!" during your weekly grade checks? It's easy to feel intensily frustrated as those last semester's patterns begin to reappear.
This year will be better though! Because we are planning for the predictable, and we have strategies for all those blunders and backslides.
This is a particularly difficult time for them. They really try to hold onto the last remnants of independence, as their need for assistance grows. Meanwhile, our struggling student’s brains are sliding into the mid-semester slump ahead.
Read on to learn about one of the most powerful and most used strategies for helping our struggling students catch those blunders before it is too late.
Enjoy!
They want independence, but they need help.
We want to support them, but not enable helplessness.
I'd like to introduce a strategy that was basically the cornerstone of my coaching program: The Radar List.
This is a way to assist your student with tracking the late, missing, and incomplete assignments, without completely taking over. It includes a running log of efforts made towards resolving the situation, and opportunity for praising those efforts.
This strategy addresses problem areas, within the grade report, from a collaborative problem solving point of view.
The Radar List
The Radar list is essentially a list of assignments from the grade report that we are keeping on our "radar" until they are complete. We don’t consider an assignment completed until that grade is recorded.
After we identify the assignments to keep on the list, we write the plan for resolving those issues. As those issues are resolved, those assignments go off our list. Then, we follow up weekly (or more frequently) to check in, reward, and update the list.
Keep in mind, not every item on the list has an action step. Some items may be there because we are waiting on it to be graded. This becomes helpful, because it gives us a running log of how long we've been waiting, and thus, when is a good time to follow up with the teacher.
Just like the ART Log and Grade Report Meeting, you get to have the easy job of logging the information, while your student has the difficult job of remembering and planning.
With the schedule getting busy, the forgetfulness setting in, and mounting missing/late assignments, it is the perfect time to bring the Radar List into our weekly strategies.
