APS and Lexia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, while I understand your concern, it might be time to sit with her a few minutes each time that lesson/Lexia time is assigned. Helping to keep her on track for a few minutes would solve this. Also, you could see if teacher is open to the Lexia being completed after school. I’m giving ours the option to do app content outside of school hours if they read during that time.

OP here again. Thank you all for helping me figure out what questions I should be asking her teacher. I’ve asked her some but they clearly weren’t the right ones since the answers were still unclear.

I do sit with her for most of the day. We have four other kids doing school at our house so my full attention isn’t on her all the time and I think that’s pretty common. I’m going to try to better understand when I should be seeing her on Lexia during the day. It’s much less clear with her teacher than it is with my third grader’s.

It’s frustrating to me that she often spends more time and energy on her school work during the day than my older ones do. I know it frustrates her sometimes too. This last Monday was the first in a long time where we have been done working on asynchronous work before 5...she and I are often exhausted at the end of the school day so I’m hesitant to have her do Lexia after school. Maybe I should see if I can figure out when the goal resets. If it’s Friday night, I could probably get her to do a reasonable chunk on the weekend and that would certainly be helpful and less overwhelming during the week. I know 12 minutes a day doesn’t sound like a lot but we are also supposed to do 20 minutes of reading after school so it’s an extra half an hour that maybe I just need to block into my after school scheduling.

Goals reset on Monday.
A cheat if you are dead set on your kid not doing it— time spent in an activity (even if the iPad is locked) counts. My kid accidentally got 24 hours one week that way.
You should try to help her get her goal legitimately though.

Log completely out and back in. It resets the time for active time. And yes, it resets on Sundays so if OP tries to get her kid to do it on Sunday, that's not going to work..

[Anonymous]

There's good and bad aspects to Lexia.

OP: Your child might just be too young for the program. I know it was designed to start at K but I have a 2nd grader who can't do it independantly but same child can do the math programs alone. My 2nd grader and I do it together and there are so many problems.
1. dexterity. Too slow to type, repeat.
2. speed. It's really slow.
3. repetition...way too slow.
4. unclear directions
5. stop in the middle of the lesson, repeat the lesson (I think).
6. content in no way matches developmental level and sometimes the various spelling words are widely different in one lesson.

That said, I have a 5th grader who likes it. His reading comprehension is far above his spelling ability and Lexia adjusts for that. Sometimes he can't figure out how to do a lesson but with a little trial and error it works out.

I don't think it's good for kids with short attention spans.

[Anonymous]

My first grader hates Lexia. She would much rather work with me on reading in other ways (that don’t involve a screen). I still make her do Lexia, but I resent the pressure to do it so much. Also, in the program it says her weekly goal is 30 min (no problem), but the teacher tells them to do it for 20-25 min every day. Why the discrepancy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue is that aps doesn’t really do a good job teaching traditional language arts— spelling, grammar, etc. This becomes painfully apparent when your kids get older and they have no idea what a noun is and are horrible spellers.

Lexia is the answer to that — it covers a traditional language arts curriculum. If your kid is several grades behind, they will encourage them to get on grade level by spending more time doing it. You should probably encourage them to get on grade level too.

Excluding someone for not doing required work is not a bad punishment, you don’t want to get in the habit of saying schoolwork is optional if it’s not “fun”.

All of this. I really wish/hope when they return to regular school they just scrap the language arts curriculum they’re using and replace it with something that will teach them what Lexia is, without needing to use an App. Apps are fine for reinforcement, but in normal times, should not be the default or primary method of instruction. Kids need a good foundation in the skills Lexia is teaching in order to be proficient in English. So while I don’t love how they are approaching getting the kids to do it, I believe it’s time well spent. Better than trying to get kids who can’t even spell single syllable words to write a “personal narrative.” So stupid. Workshops are great, but you learn to walk before you run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, while I understand your concern, it might be time to sit with her a few minutes each time that lesson/Lexia time is assigned. Helping to keep her on track for a few minutes would solve this. Also, you could see if teacher is open to the Lexia being completed after school. I’m giving ours the option to do app content outside of school hours if they read during that time.

OP here again. Thank you all for helping me figure out what questions I should be asking her teacher. I’ve asked her some but they clearly weren’t the right ones since the answers were still unclear.

I do sit with her for most of the day. We have four other kids doing school at our house so my full attention isn’t on her all the time and I think that’s pretty common. I’m going to try to better understand when I should be seeing her on Lexia during the day. It’s much less clear with her teacher than it is with my third grader’s.

It’s frustrating to me that she often spends more time and energy on her school work during the day than my older ones do. I know it frustrates her sometimes too. This last Monday was the first in a long time where we have been done working on asynchronous work before 5...she and I are often exhausted at the end of the school day so I’m hesitant to have her do Lexia after school. Maybe I should see if I can figure out when the goal resets. If it’s Friday night, I could probably get her to do a reasonable chunk on the weekend and that would certainly be helpful and less overwhelming during the week. I know 12 minutes a day doesn’t sound like a lot but we are also supposed to do 20 minutes of reading after school so it’s an extra half an hour that maybe I just need to block into my after school scheduling.

My kindergartner is done with his asynchronous work on Mondays in less than an hour. Is your kid's teacher assigning an unreasonable amount for a 1st grader to do on her own?

OP here and yes. They don’t clarify what is must do work and what is may do work. They have 3-4 math assignments plus dreambox, writing, phonics, two reading assignments, Lexia, science and/or social studies, and then any catch up work from the last week. I sat with her and dedicated 100% of my time to her on Monday and we finished in 3.5 hours. If I have to stop and help one of the other kids with something, she often gets off track or she will finish half of the assignment and then move on to something else.

I think they may feel like they need to provide enough work for the kids to stay busy all day while parents are working. I would think they would realize that six and seven year olds aren’t the best at doing focused work by themselves for 5.5 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s probably required bc it’s “teaching” hours. It’s down now fwiw.

Yeah, we had major glitches with Lexia this week. Lots of restarting iPads and frustration that things weren’t tracking correctly. My third grader was logged in for ten minutes and got credit for his full twenty minute goal...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, while I understand your concern, it might be time to sit with her a few minutes each time that lesson/Lexia time is assigned. Helping to keep her on track for a few minutes would solve this. Also, you could see if teacher is open to the Lexia being completed after school. I’m giving ours the option to do app content outside of school hours if they read during that time.

OP here again. Thank you all for helping me figure out what questions I should be asking her teacher. I’ve asked her some but they clearly weren’t the right ones since the answers were still unclear.

I do sit with her for most of the day. We have four other kids doing school at our house so my full attention isn’t on her all the time and I think that’s pretty common. I’m going to try to better understand when I should be seeing her on Lexia during the day. It’s much less clear with her teacher than it is with my third grader’s.

It’s frustrating to me that she often spends more time and energy on her school work during the day than my older ones do. I know it frustrates her sometimes too. This last Monday was the first in a long time where we have been done working on asynchronous work before 5...she and I are often exhausted at the end of the school day so I’m hesitant to have her do Lexia after school. Maybe I should see if I can figure out when the goal resets. If it’s Friday night, I could probably get her to do a reasonable chunk on the weekend and that would certainly be helpful and less overwhelming during the week. I know 12 minutes a day doesn’t sound like a lot but we are also supposed to do 20 minutes of reading after school so it’s an extra half an hour that maybe I just need to block into my after school scheduling.

Goals reset on Monday.
A cheat if you are dead set on your kid not doing it— time spent in an activity (even if the iPad is locked) counts. My kid accidentally got 24 hours one week that way.
You should try to help her get her goal legitimately though.

Ha! This probably explains my third grader tracking extra time that I know he didn’t do...now to figure out how to keep him on track too 🤦🏻‍♀️

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's good and bad aspects to Lexia.

OP: Your child might just be too young for the program. I know it was designed to start at K but I have a 2nd grader who can't do it independantly but same child can do the math programs alone. My 2nd grader and I do it together and there are so many problems.
1. dexterity. Too slow to type, repeat.
2. speed. It's really slow.
3. repetition...way too slow.
4. unclear directions
5. stop in the middle of the lesson, repeat the lesson (I think).
6. content in no way matches developmental level and sometimes the various spelling words are widely different in one lesson.

That said, I have a 5th grader who likes it. His reading comprehension is far above his spelling ability and Lexia adjusts for that. Sometimes he can't figure out how to do a lesson but with a little trial and error it works out.

I don't think it's good for kids with short attention spans.

Op here - I suspect that might have something to do with it. She is about as young as you can get in first grade with a September birthday. She is an incredibly good reader but I think some of the speed and dexterity issues might be an issue I hadn’t considered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, while I understand your concern, it might be time to sit with her a few minutes each time that lesson/Lexia time is assigned. Helping to keep her on track for a few minutes would solve this. Also, you could see if teacher is open to the Lexia being completed after school. I’m giving ours the option to do app content outside of school hours if they read during that time.

OP here again. Thank you all for helping me figure out what questions I should be asking her teacher. I’ve asked her some but they clearly weren’t the right ones since the answers were still unclear.

I do sit with her for most of the day. We have four other kids doing school at our house so my full attention isn’t on her all the time and I think that’s pretty common. I’m going to try to better understand when I should be seeing her on Lexia during the day. It’s much less clear with her teacher than it is with my third grader’s.

It’s frustrating to me that she often spends more time and energy on her school work during the day than my older ones do. I know it frustrates her sometimes too. This last Monday was the first in a long time where we have been done working on asynchronous work before 5...she and I are often exhausted at the end of the school day so I’m hesitant to have her do Lexia after school. Maybe I should see if I can figure out when the goal resets. If it’s Friday night, I could probably get her to do a reasonable chunk on the weekend and that would certainly be helpful and less overwhelming during the week. I know 12 minutes a day doesn’t sound like a lot but we are also supposed to do 20 minutes of reading after school so it’s an extra half an hour that maybe I just need to block into my after school scheduling.

My kindergartner is done with his asynchronous work on Mondays in less than an hour. Is your kid's teacher assigning an unreasonable amount for a 1st grader to do on her own?

OP here and yes. They don’t clarify what is must do work and what is may do work. They have 3-4 math assignments plus dreambox, writing, phonics, two reading assignments, Lexia, science and/or social studies, and then any catch up work from the last week. I sat with her and dedicated 100% of my time to her on Monday and we finished in 3.5 hours. If I have to stop and help one of the other kids with something, she often gets off track or she will finish half of the assignment and then move on to something else.

I think they may feel like they need to provide enough work for the kids to stay busy all day while parents are working. I would think they would realize that six and seven year olds aren’t the best at doing focused work by themselves for 5.5 hours.

Maybe you can ask the teacher to label the activities as optional. My kid's teacher does this with some math assignments. Otherwise, I would take a look at your DC's assignments in the morning and tell her which ones to focus on, then let the rest go. She should not be spending all day on school work (unless you want her to). I have a 2nd grader and there is one assignment per subject, if that. Maybe more if you count the app work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My first grader hates Lexia. She would much rather work with me on reading in other ways (that don’t involve a screen). I still make her do Lexia, but I resent the pressure to do it so much. Also, in the program it says her weekly goal is 30 min (no problem), but the teacher tells them to do it for 20-25 min every day. Why the discrepancy?

This may be because different kids have different goals, depending on their reading level, the minutes they previously spent in Lexia each week, and sometimes depending on whether they just moved to a new level. So she’s giving you a ballpark, perhaps.