How much is too much help?

During study session today - after going over dozens of math problems, students broke into small groups to drill each other on vocabulary. One of the girls came up to me and asked to go make a copy of a copy of someone's vocab work.

Nope, I responded.

Why not, she asked (not especially nicely).

I just looked at her.

At this point I've explained a couple of hundred times the benefit of looking the words up, reading the definition, writing the definition down. Right now in this one class, one child's vocabulary is now a classroom set.

I'm noticing a trend. There are doers and those that wait for things to be done for them. Some of the doers gladly do for those that wait. When I tell a kid to look something up - That problem is in Chapter 2 - near the beginning. We talked about it, so I know once you find it, you'll remember it. Likely as not, another kid will jump in and tell the other how to do the problem. Even small things like What's the date/time? When I remind him or her that a calendar/clock is on the wall, inevitably someone will jump in and tell them.

I used to explain that they have figured this out, so their classmates can too. This hasn't worked. I'm trying a new strategy likened to exercising. If someone is asking a question and I don't directly answer, then I want their brain to exercise. If they jump in and answer, then their brain gets double exercise and the kid who doesn't know the skill still has none.

We'll see if this works.