Trouble with word finding

Things like this *GAME*?

My 2nd grade son, Bobby, brought home a paper to finish (for a grade) that he couldn’t do in school. It was similar to these web games, but printed on a fuzzy copier, several generations from the original. The worst possible reproduction, was part of the problem, but none of us could look at the damn thing without the letters running around all over the page.

Even my NT wife had trouble looking at it because it was «a little fuzzy» to her. Her dyslexia makes things like this exercise sheet and spelling in general almost impossible, anyway so she wouldn’t have been able to do the paper, no matter what. My son was simply expected to do it at home and return it the next day for a grade. NoWay Jose!

Bobby became obsessed with finishing it, even though he stood absolutely no chance of completing it alone. He had managed to do 2 words and the teacher had done 2, but that was as far as he had gotten in school. Couldn’t do anything with it at home, but he was determined not to be defeated by it. He was beginning to show behavior that warned me he was about to have a serious meltdown, very angry, frustrated animal-like growls, erasing frantically, slamming his hand onto the page to make the letters «stop moving». I checked back on him at that point and realized he was in tears and shaking with anger. That’s when I stopped him and tried to do more hands-on help. NoWay Jose!

I have always had to chase jumbled up letter puzzles around to make sense of these things. This one threw me for a loop, mainly because of the cut-rate reproduction of the sheet, I think. I may have been a Bad Dad, but we sat down together and I helped him find every one of the words he was supposed to find. I had to take separate sheets of blank paper and cover all but one line at a time and do it the hard way. When we were done I was so sea-sick and nauseated that my day was ruined and about 5 minutes after he finished and started getting active, Bobby threw up.

Sorry this explanation has gotten so long, but the 3 page letter I wrote to the teacher was much longer. I’m a little frustrated with the whole episode and I’m curious if anyone else has the same reaction to these things.

I think it’s ridiculous for him to be graded on something that is impossible for him to do. His spelling is so advanced above the words on that exercise sheet that he passes with 100% on each spelling test. He already knows how to spell everything they can come up with and they even let him choose 4 ‘special words’ each week. He’s into dinosaurs so he usually chooses some huge scientific name, like Parasaurolophus or something for his special words. No problem.

I sometimes wonder if this mainstream class is going to hold him back. I’m still waiting for a response from his teacher to see if he can be exempt from the torture of these type of exercises.

Am I totally out of line here and just ranting because my little boy had to suffer an impasse that caused him pain or am I right about these worksheets? Should he be exempt from them somehow? Would that be the same as admitting defeat?

I can’t do those things because I have major visual issues and they make my head hurt — after a while all the letters get swirly . . . but that used to drive me crazy in school . . . I remember failing assignments that involved those things

Here’s a strategy for finishing word searches:

1. Look at the first letter of the word you’re trying to find. Remember it. Let’s say it’s «A».

2. Take a pencil and lightly circle all the letters that are the same as that first letter—all the «A»s.

3. Look at the second letter of the word. Remember it.

4. Look at each of those circled A’s, and the nine letters around it. If any of those nine letters match that second letter, read in that direction to see if the word is there.

5. Eventually, you’ll find the word. Circle it in pen.

6. Repeat with the rest of the words that start with «A». Remember that two words can start from the same letter.

7. Erase the pencil circles you made around those first letters.

8. Start over with the next group of words that start with the same letter, circling the letters in pencil, the found words in pen, and erasing the circles once you’ve found all the words that begin with the circled letter.

9. Repeat 1-8 until finished.

Yeah I have to do them the way Callista said also and take frequent breaks because of the headaches.

I’m crap at wordsearches yet I’m good at Sudokus.

Doing word searches isn’t a necessary skill for a kid to have; and if they make him throw up, there’s good reason to teach him the information some other way.

Maybe the teacher could assign a different piece of homework to make up for this one? If the task is to find the words to learn how to spell them, he could, instead, just write each word three times, or something like that. Boring; but he’d get the same thing out of it, especially if his good memory comes into play. Or if the words are vocabulary, maybe he could use them in sentences. There’s no reason his dyslexia (or whatever is making him so nauseated) should get in the way of his getting a decent grade when there’s such an easy way around it.