How to Teach ELA to a Math Kid

This past week, while checking in with my different homeschool groups and discussing the best  places and times to meet up with other parents of antsy twelve year old boys so our off-spring could get their energy out with minimal destruction to the environment, I came across a question from a sweet mama who was trying to help her math/science child become engaged with his reading/writing coursework. She had tried several different curriculums and the child was becoming so disconnected and frustrated that she was afraid he would never learn the necessary skills. 

Knowing this woman's struggle, and having worked with different learning types myself, I reached out to her and suggested she get creative - think outside the proverbial box. One of my favorite things about homeschooling is the fact that if something isn’t working for your student you have the freedom to change it. If your student is not responding to a certain method, change it! If they are frustrated by the curriculum's style, change it! If they work better with a different time schedule, change it! Homeschooling gives the parent the ability and freedom to meet the child where they are and create the best learning environment for that child. 

This particular mama was asking for new curriculums to try but I suggested she try making her own, one tailored to her son. Here are a few things I suggested to help get her math-minded child engaged in language arts:

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  Try taking a weekly trip to the library and allowing the child to choose the book that he will be reading that week. Let them pick topics that interest him such as scientific discovery, math and science heroes of the past, or even fiction books that align closer with his interests.
• Have the child compose spin off stories of the books they have chosen so you can work in spelling and grammar stuff. Use science and math to encourage reading and writing. You can even begin by having the child orally present a made up story based on something they read - writing is a small motor skill that, when not as developed as the imagination, can slow the process and be frustrating. If the child is allowed to tell the story and then write it down incrementally it may help.
• And while we are talking about it - libraries are a treasure trove and the librarians can be your best friend if they are good ones (which most are). They know all the resources and educational opportunities, even free-bees and discounts!
• For a child 5-9 you can do things like write his assignments in code (alpha-numeric substitution) and have him decipher it before he completes the assignment. When he completes it he must re-encode it! If you want him to write a paragraph, have him choose the topic (space? chemistry? An important scientist from history?) and together you can do a whole study project to learn about that topic - make it fun by including tactile stimulation as well as writing and reading (like recreating an experiment in the field of study or building a play rocket or stomp rocket). It will make it fun and engaging, all the while he is learning to read/write/ spell/etc. 
• If you want to try alph-numeric substitution you could start with a simple "A=1, B=2, C=3" code (or go in reverse and start with "Z=1, Y=2," etc.) Once the child gets the hang of it you could add symbols or math equations to arrive at the correct letters or words. Only encrypt some of the words in the assignment and see if he can guess the words before solving the code to see if his mind is retaining the proper sentence structure and grammar schemes. Absolutely you can use google to come up with new codes! The more ways you challenge his mind the more he learns - and in more than one subject!

These are just a few ideas of mixing up the way you teach to match the way a child will learn. You can go the other way as well and use stories to teach Math! Here at The Adventure Letters we use Stories and puzzles to teach Geography and inspire a love of adventure! There are so many imaginative ways to create a love of learning in our children in any and all subjects - even the ones they are not naturally inclined towards!