Lego Dude

Ryan is thoroughly, completely, absolutely obsessed with Legos. He is always asking: "when can I get a new Lego set?" We've discovered that the promise of a new Lego set can be quite the motivator. (He's actually reading this out loud as I type--how cool is that?!)

For instance, each week his class has a pretest for the spelling words for that week. If a student gets all the words right on the pretest, then they get the challenge word list with harder words to learn. For several weeks he was consistantly bringing home the challenge word list, but was not real thrilled about having to learn the harder words. Then suddenly it stopped. I didn't pay much attention at first, but then the weekly newsletter mentioned the challenge word lists.

I looked at his spelling pretest and noticed that he had misspelled several words that I was fairly sure he knew. I asked him why he had gotten them wrong and he looked down and said "I guess I was rushing through my work." I reminded him about the importance of getting the job done right instead of getting it done fast.

The following week, there were some more misspelled words that I thought for sure he would know how to spell. The weekly lists generally contain words in a common word family, and he had gotten other words right on the test (like 'sound' and 'found' and 'round') but missed some (spelled 'loud' as 'lowd' and 'proud' as 'prowd').

Now, I don't mean to brag (honest!), but Ryan is a pretty doggone bright kid. And I KNEW that something was up. So I asked him if he was getting words wrong on the pretest on purpose so that he wouldn't have to do the challenge word list. He immediately hung his head and wouldn't look me in the eye. Hmmm. Guess I was onto something, huh? I asked him again, while making him look me in the eye, and he confessed that he didn't want to have to do the challenge words.

I didn't know what to do at first. I had the presence of mind to control myself from laughing or congratulating him (didn't think that would be the appropriate response, even though those thoughts ran through my mind!). I had to send him to his room so that I could talk to Kevin about it. We both had a good laugh. After all, you have GOT to admire the thought process!

We decided that this shouldn't be something we punish him for. We don't want learning or school to become unenjoyable, and don't want to motivate him with fear. Plus, sometimes he might legitimately not know how to spell one of the regular words. So we came up with a point system to motivate him to try to get the challenge words. Each word he got right on the pretest was worth 1 point (there are 10 regular words each week). If he brought the challenge list home, he got a bonus of 5 points. Then for the real spelling test on Friday, if he was being tested on the basic list, each word was worth another 1 point, but the challenge list words were worth 2 points each. Soooooo, without the challenge list he could earn a maximum of 19 points for the week, but WITH the challenge list he could earn 35 points for the week.

We then put together a variety of ways for him to "spend" his points: 10 points for ice cream at Brusters (by himself with mom or dad); 50 points for a trip to the movies (again, by himself with mom or dad); etc.; with the ultimate prize being 500 points for a new Lego set worth $50.

Since starting this system he has earned 447 points and has a few weeks left until the end of the year. There have only been 2 weeks that he hasn't brought home the challenge list. And he hasn't spent a single point yet. He is salivating over the chance to go get the newest Batman set he's been eyeing.

Cool. Especially since I know that these types of results would not have happened with a negative system of consequences. Thank you Legos for giving my son a reason to enjoy learning!

Here are a few examples of his building talents. Not bad for a 7-year-old, eh? Perhaps we have a future architect in our family... He always builds a new set according to the directions, and leaves it to admire for a few weeks, but then he starts tweaking it and finally dismantles it and turns it into something completely new by combining it with legos from other sets.

I am always so amazed by the complexity with which he builds. He is particularly fond of using symmetry.