WWYD - skipping ahead in K work

[frugalmama]

DD is just four, doing K work already by mutual choice. We're using CHC as written.

She already knows her numbers for counting to 20, all letters and most letter sounds. However she cannot write most letters or numbers. She refuses totally to write on her own when asked to do so, but will trace a few of each every day.

I'm debating skipping her ahead to new material. She is getting bored just tracing which is making school not fun for her, and I want it to be fun. I've also considered just taking a day or two and doing all the worksheets but skipping the writing practice - i.e. circling correct answer or verbally doing it.

WWYD? The next thing in her math book after numbers 1-20 is sequences which would be new for her.

[mom2ponygirl]

I would go at her pace - let her set it. You definitely want to keep it fun at this age! My daughter would tend to race through stuff in one area for awhile and then turn her interest elsewhere for awhile.

Definitely do things orally. Her fine motor skills will come with age and play. Writing will come easily later, no need to worry now.

[karanyavel]

I would provide whatever accomodations are necessary for your daughter to move on to a portion of the work that is at her level.

My just-turned-6 DD has a fine motor skill delay (no known reason or other problems) that appears to just be a result of weak hand muscles. She can't write legibly, always hated drawing and coloring, etc. But she's in 3rd grade science, so she answers questions by typing them out. We are very gradually increasing the amount of pencil and paper work she does while doing other fun activities to strengthen her hand muscles.

At four, I don't think you have a fine motor delay on your hands, though. If she's still resisting any kind of writing at 6 -- like my DD -- that's another matter entirely.

For now, no worries unless you think that she'll be going into PS next year and will have to be able to write her name or something.

--K

[tankgirl73]

I think this is a common issue for young children who are "ahead" of the curve in terms of academic abilities. Their brains might be ahead, but not their bodies, so it's difficult for them to write at the same level that is expected in many curricula for the equivalent 'mental' material. Asynchronous development! It's the biggest weakness (IMO, out of many of course) of the institutional school system, the assumption that all skills progress on a more or less parallel rate of development.

So with young asynchronous kids, we might get some resource or program that teaches exactly what your kid is ready and eager to learn, but it does it all with having them WRITE everything.

But it helps to think of it this way -- the skill of handwriting, and the skill of understanding math, for instance, are two TOTALLY independent skills. Sure, sooner or later they'll have to learn to write out math problems in order to communicate what they're doing efficiently, but it's not NECESSARY for the learning of math concepts. The writing down of a math problem is not the math itself, if you see what I mean.

I faced a sort of similar issue with my son. Much older than K, but very 'weak' in his writing skills. Every resource we wanted to use, for science or history or whatever, was expecting the kids to respond to the lessons with paragraphs and essays and well-composed summaries... NO WAY was this going to happen!

But rather than stress about getting him to write proper answers the way this program wanted, I realized the two skills were separate. His ability to write about it is separate from his actual understanding of the science he learned.

This is what led me into a Charlotte Mason philosophy, in fact. For his written responses, we started substituting drawing -- something which he loves and is good at. Other kids might want to act out their responses, build them with legos or playdoh, or just orally narrate. It doesn't matter if the worksheet isn't 'properly' filled in by themselves, as long as they understand the material, right?

My daughter is now almost 4 and doing K level material. A bit different than yours, she DOES love to 'write' and is working hard on learning it. BUT her skill level in writing is still significantly "behind" her mental skills levels, so there are many resources that I'll just skip because they require too much writing at a typical 5-6yo level. Instead, we do lots of physical math work, large-motor drawing (like on a standing chalkboard or whiteboard), and if there's something that does need to be written but is beyond her, I'll write it for her. She does enjoy tracing, but I would not "make" her do lines and lines of tracing just because some program told me to if she was getting bored with it.

So... I guess my suggestion is like the pp, follow her lead. If she's ready to do sequences, then go ahead and do them, and do whatever you need to do for the worksheets/responses in terms of what and whether she writes anything. She'll "catch up" when she's ready.

[moominmamma]

Totally skip ahead! Her lack of interest in handwriting is totally appropriate for a 4-year-old. Her interest in math is precocious for a 4-year-old. Don't hold her back to her weakest (but still age-appropriate) skill. Let her soar!

Here's a photo of my then-newly-5-year-old's math work. She'd made backwards 9's all over the place. She's my fourth bright, asynchronous child, so I had got way beyond worrying over that sort of thing. Here's what I wrote about it at the time:

Fortunately my kids don't read curriculum-writers' scope and sequence. They don't know that multi-digit multiplication shouldn't be taught until they've sorted out whether twenty-four is written as 24 or 42. They don't know that work with parentheses and subtraction should wait until after you have learned to print a numeral 9 correctly.

I love these little incongruities. They're like the little stories I can sometimes read outside in the yard where my kids were playing, the ones made of a bicycle left near a copse of trees, a discarded jacket, a pile of special stones, a stick in the ground. And one sandal. How odd. Where is the other one? What happened here?

These little trails of clues are evidence of my kids charting their own unique course, led by interest, veering off in unexpected directions, finding unusual ways of looking at things and moving where they decide they should. The backwards 9's are evidence that my kids are going at things their own way, according to their agenda. In other words, follow your dd's path, and enjoy the unique ride rather than fretting that it's a different ride than that plotted out by a curriculum writer.

Miranda

[OkiMom]

If she understand the concepts I don't see why hold her back. I found my DD knows more than she can write (she loves workbooks but can't do the written potion of them) so I got her some sticker workbooks or we do the one you just have to circle. If/when she completes those and asks to go on (we do what she wants to do) then Ill go on whether her fine motor skills are up to writing or not.
Im actually debating slowly teaching her how to read since she has been asking me for a while to learn how to read. This girls is obsessed with books to the point she is always asking me to read to her and actually sleeps with books in bed with her. Its cute/funny that at night she curls up with her Minnie Mouse, doggy and Dr. Suess.

[kgianforti]

I would definitely not hold her back just because her writing isn't moving along.