My latest reading has been "Homework without Tears." I've been trying to figure out the best way to help Christopher with improving some of his study habits -- both at home and at school. Specifically, we're working on attitude, organization, neatness, focus, and accuracy. The book had several good ideas, some of which we were already trying. It also gave me some ideas of things to try out.

First stop-- a Homework Contract for the remaining month of school. We agreed to expectations for home and school in the contract. They include:

1. Do homework independently;
2. Do your best;
3. Complete work with emphasis on neatness, punctuation, detail, and organization;
4. No complaints;
5. Double-check work for accuracy.

At school we added:

1. Be an in-charge learner (self-motivated, focused, on-task, not getting involved in too many side conversations, asking for help when needed but not letting a question stop you from proceeding with other work);
2. Follow instructions (written and verbal -- read twice if needed to make sure you've got them all. Ask questions if you don't understand something);
3. Bring home any unfinished work of the day (Christopher's job to ask his teacher every day if he has unfinished work from the day that needs to be attended to in addition to regular homework).

None of this is rocket science. I'm sometimes in amazement that we need to write them down, but there you have it. We've set up some short term and long term goals to get him through the school year. Pretty much every week there is a chance to earn a small treat -- a baked good of his choice, a book, a trip to the Bear Tooth with a friend, getting to choose his favorite meal and I'll cook it for dinner. If he does well through the end of school, we'll get him a special treat in Greece. We emailed the contract to his teacher so that she can help him keep his end of the bargain at school, and I'll be checking in with her once or twice a week to see how he's doing with it. We'll write a new contract for the summer so that he can continue to work on academic skills on his own.

I'll be interested to see if laying out clear instructions and having closer follow-through will be helpful to him. I'm also wondering if the tubes in his ears may help -- he had a hearing test today and the right ear is perfect but the left is a bit off. It's not bad enough to warrant anything extra, but it does have me wondering if he hasn't been hearing as well before the tubes especially and if that may have impacted some of his issues. He's a smart boy who has developed some poor habits that negatively impact his schoolwork quality. I really want to help him circumvent those habits early on.