related to grade skipping - Page 2

[Just1More]

I just wanted to say that this thread has been so helpful to me.

My dd is almost 6, and we kept her out of school this year, and intended to begin homeschooling the next, but she is just so far ahead of where she has to be that...well, I don't want to school her yet.  I don't want to interrupt what she is doing on her own, and the little bits she is picking up here and there. 

Thanks for giving me more confidence to just wait it out, and let her have more time to be little.  AND not to worry about how uneven some of her development is.

[Roar]

Another approach...

My objection isn't to providing structured handwriting practice or information for kids. My objection is when developmentally inappropriate expectations are put on kids - that would be expecting really mature letter formation or expecting that kids will do hours of handwriting a day. I also don't like the approach of requiring good handwriting across the curriculum because it can take something a kid loves - like math - and turn it into drudgery.

So, what worked well for us was to treat handwriting as a stand alone activity beginning with the use of Handwriting Without Tears. So, when the child was handwriting he could focus totally on handwriting. We found ways to minimize handwriting at other times if he wished - typing, dictating to parents, avoiding worksheets, etc. This worked really well because the regular practice lead to handwriting getting easier and easier and along the way we avoided frustration with tying other subjects to handwriting.

If you plan to have your child go to school in the near future I don't think it is unreasonable to offer some handwriting instruction, but I would recognize that he may actually improve his handwriting more from short, steady practice than from requiring him to have good handwriting all the time. By short and steady - I mean really short - like five or ten minutes a day, but very consistent so the child develops muscle memory.

[aishamama]

Thank you so much Roar for your reply. You're right, and I don't expect mature formation over night and we don't spend hours a day. We spend about half an hour when we find time. We couldn't get two days in a row. We just worked on lowercase a and lowercase b. The thing is that I haven't committed to any learning plan as of yet for this coming year. I'm working hard on figuring it out and trying to see where we can even find a place to live where we're moving to. I want him to flourish however he wants. But he does have this laziness about him. He's very slow moving and I have to have long talks about things to get him going or have to threaten him with timeout (for things like he won't pick up his toys, claims he's 'suddenly' tired, or he has to go to the bathroom, he should eat to get some energy.. a thousand excuses to not do what I am asking him. So, I have to sort of balance out his qualities and also push a tiny bit to get him moving along on the things he doesn't like...such as the physical work of writing. He's even stopped drawing and he used to draw really neat things.  I really agree with you though about not turning the written work into drudgery. This is something I definitely don't want to do. We did a lot of oral work this week and I also did some work with videos and got a little more creative with some things. 

I checked out the "Handwriting Without Tears" and I can't see how this is much different than what I'm doing.. :/   Am I missing something? 

[Tjej]

There's something called "Draw Write Now" that looks cool and might be of interest to him - I haven't used it but am eyeing it for next year.

Tjej

[aishamama]

Tjej, that looks neat. I think he'd like to draw that way even if he never wrote a word in it. He used to draw a lot and still a little time to time, but he seems to have left that craze and moved on to other things. =)