writing woes

[accidental_hs'er]

I know I am not the only one who has a boy who won't write. I need some words or perspective before I freak out or get into a massive showdown with the boy over busywork of my making.

Alex is 7. He is advanced in every area but still writes in capital letters and on occasion still asks what a Q looks like. I am at a loss as to what to do. On one hand, I don't want to push him. On the other hand, he is going into "grade 2" and is behind kids his age.

I'll be honest, my only fear is that something sudden will happen to me one day and he'll wind up in school where they will wonder how I let a kid who can read at nearly high school level write in caps. Sigh...

Someone talk me down from all these practice workbooks I bought. I just know it will be the death of both of us.

[momto4plus4]

Dd1 is 9 1/2 and still mixes up her letters sometimes. I've heard this same thing from many other moms and we've all agreed it's best to do minimal writing at this age with a child who is on target. Some kids just don't like it. I am just this year (ending 3rd grade) making her write 3 sentence paragraphs and this is the first year we've done grammar (including capital vs lower case). He's fine, let it go for now. He'll be ready. I would suggest continuing to correct any letter mistakes like making them backwards so that he knows they're wrong but otherwise, skip the writing lessons! You may be surprised in a few months to find he's ready without the prodding!

[jessicaSAR]

I am not sure you need to be talked down from the practice workbooks. Kids in school write (physically) better because they don't have a choice. They have to write more. You don't have to spend hours a day on writing practice, but 15 minutes a day is probably a good thing. If for some reason he had to go to school, he would not only have to be prepared to write more, he would have to be prepared to do some things he doesn't want to do. I think learning to practice something diligently and consistently is a valuable lesson. As Samuel Johnson famously said, " What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence."

[simple living mama]

You might enjoy Peggy Kayes Games for Writing. I love using this book and it's full of fantastic ideas.

[ikesmom]

Originally Posted by simple living mama

You might enjoy Peggy Kayes Games for Writing. I love using this book and it's full of fantastic ideas.

We checked that one out and liked it as well
Is this handwriting or actually writing words in a sentence? Both?


I have this struggle with my ds too and he is 10. I tried to push it and we were miserable..tears. I learned to back off and take it slow. He is getting better and I have to say I think he needed time to mature and develop his perceptual skills.


If you can sneak writing in small doses instead of a workbook you might feel more relaxed.

Have him make a grocery list of things he wants from the store-you can help him spell if you want to that way he will see the correct words..never mind if you can't read it and have him read it to you.

Have him make a poster for his room- ex; Keep Out! Spies Only! Then build on it and have him add details or secret code.

If he has ideas have him tell you while you write them down to model. We still do this a lot.

Instead of having him write -make sentence strips and have him organize them into a sequence to make a paragraph. Organizing is a huge part of knowing what to write.

[luv2homeschool]

My dd is just finishing second grade and is finally writing with upper and lower case letters. She is younger, not quite 7, but she is finally getting a grasp on the lower case letters. It took a while and I didn;t push it till the last few weeks. i want her to do cursive next year and told her she needs to show me she can print first - she really wants to learn cursive.

Also, as far as writing, we are just starting to write paragraphs. In fact, she wrote her first informational paragraph last week on Borneo! She did a great job too. I was worried she was going to fall behind because I really haven;t required her to do much story writing, but she had no problem.

[elizawill]

Originally Posted by simple living mama

You might enjoy Peggy Kayes Games for Writing. I love using this book and it's full of fantastic ideas.

yep, i agree!

[pampered_mom]

"Home Learning Year by Year" had a handful of ideas (including a couple of journals) to encourage writing in the K and 1st grade chapters.

As for the workbooks...would he possibly take interest in them if you left them out for him to work with (or not) without any pressure? Maybe if he saw them he might think they were really cool. You never know...

[AnnR33]

While I understand your fear of "falling behind" I have to say "he's only 7!"

One of the benefits of hsing is going at your own pace. Boys, especially, tend to develop slower with the physical act of handwriting. They are not as adept with the fine motor skills, but ask them to climb a rope and up they go LOL.

My son didn't read well until he was 9 and is only just now starting to do more writing at age 11. If I would have pushed him at these subjects early on he would HATE reading and writing. But since I waited until he was ready, he loves to read. I can't say he "loves" to write, but at least he's struggling less and wants to write short stories. His actual handwriting is terrible, but having him do cursive is helping that. The act of not raising the pencil is very helpful.

So take it slow....kids can "catch up" with subjects in a matter of months in what kids learn over years in school just because they are "ready."

[Mittsy]

I get where you're coming from, DD(5) is just now showing a interest in wanting to write at all! She has shown almost no interest in the past despite my efforts, she is a true unschooler at heart....

[accidental_hs'er]

Thanks

I appreciate all the replies. We do have Peggy Kaye's book and I have used some ideas from it but the boy is still reluctant.

While we aren't what I would think of as unschoolers, we are very relaxed. Part of the problem is that writing is the only problem we have come up against and ds just doesn't want to do anything that doesn't come easily. So we go through phases where I force practice and it makes us both miserable.

I guess I feel stuck on how to motivate the kid to even practice. Fun ways to write still make him miserable because it is still writing.

[yllek]

My perspective? Get this kid a really fun game-based keyboarding program.

I went to a school that graded penmanship all through elementary school, as a separate subject and on written work. I always got perfect marks on penmanship. Seriously, my script was like a font. And I was fast.

In junior high, I took calligraphy classes with adults. I was seriously good at it.

Now as an adult, my handwriting is a weird, shifty scrawl. I can write pretty if I try, but why bother? I only write for notes, and now that I have my laptop, iPhone, Evernote and ReQall, I hardly do that anymore. And when I do write, I often write in all caps.

Continue with handwriting practice very gently, giving him lots of time to mature. Help him to keyboard. Give him fun reasons to make signs, lists, labels, cards, comics, etc. - short, but meaningful text. To get him to practice lots of expressive language, have him dictate to you, and you write it out for him. And yes, the Peggy Kaye book is awesome.

[oceanbaby]

I had the exact same scenario when ds1 was 7. When he was in "3rd grade" he asked to start school for 4th grade, instead of homeschooling. His lack of writing skills competely freaked me out.

One thing that really helped was switching to cursive. For some reason he really liked it and was way more open to writing more. We didn't even do a strict program - I just bought a basic workbook and he traced some letters and just kept it out as a reference when he was writing.

I realized we needed to step things up since he was going to start 4th grade, and could barely write a sentence let alone a paragraph, so we hired a tutor. She works with him once a week and gives him assignments. His writing has improved a lot just in the past 2 months, but he's still not great, and he doesn't really like it. (He likes working with her, but hates doing the assignments.)

Maybe he'll always hate writing, I don't know. But I have decided that even if he doesn't stay in school, we will work to keep his writing/spelling skills up.