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The Eleven-Year-Old at School

Is your son bucking the classroom rules? Is your daughter becoming cliquish with her friends? Click on these links to find out how your eleven-year-old learns and behaves in the classroom.

Vision and Fine Motor Ability

  • Highly improved, more confident of skills; can explore delicate work (calligraphy, linoleum block printing, Japanese brush stroke); art an important vehicle to greater focus in reading, math.

  • May complain of headaches, only read for short periods of time; music (portable tapes, listening centers) may aid concentration

  • Handwork (weaving, braiding, sewing) often a favorite; may aid concentration and serve as emotional outlet for stress

    Gross Motor Ability

  • Love challenge of competition; prefer team sports, improving ability to play as a team

  • Individual motor skills (throwing, catching, kicking) accelerate rapidly; likes to measure individual best

  • "Quiet time" in school day useful for physical rest, break from academics and social dynamics

    Cognitive Growth

  • Scientific study, mathematical problem solving, invention, debate accentuate new abilities in deductive reasoning; hands-on learning still critical for most

  • Focus on self, imagining adult roles makes history, biography, current events exciting

  • Interest in rules (and challenging rules) makes board games, intellectual puzzles, brain teasers, even tests enjoyable, productive

  • Reasonably hard work usually challenges rather than defeats; need help with time-management skills, homework

  • Learns well in cooperative groups

  • Likes work that feels grown-up -- research, bibliography, interviews, footnotes, math skills

  • May show interest, facility in languages, music, mechanics; time to explore these areas important

  • Intellectual interest in older & very young people

    Social Behavior

  • Desire to test limits, rules, an important developmental milestone, not personal attack on teacher; class meetings, peer meditation, student councils, cross-age tutoring highly effective

  • Teacher attitude, tone, sense of humor critical; prevent them from taking themselves too seriously

  • Inclusion/exclusion issues require changing structures to adjust social mix

  • "Saving face" important; not necessary for teacher to "win" arguments; provide private, physical space to think things over

    From Yardsticks: Children in the Classroom Ages 4-14 by Chip Wood, © 1997 by Northeast Foundation for Children (800) 360-6332. All rights reserved as permitted under the US copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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