And now a writing question for a K boy.

[Sarah0000]

Hi again and thanks everyone with always helping with all my math questions. We're doing well there for now.

 

So my five year old son is in TK this year. He's been a fluent reader for awhile now and is currently independently reading Captain Underpants. This year he's been doing RFP Aesop Book of Reading, Writing, and Thinking. He's almost done with book 2. And some other light LA stuff like Mad Libs, BW fairytale retellings, spelling and phonics worksheets here and there, etc.

 

In the Aesop Book he writes a sentence describing a picture once a week, which he does independently. Every single sentence is the same, always starting the same, like "The car is on the cliff." He recently told me that he will always write his sentences like that because they are shorter. Ha!

 

Any suggestions for something structured (open and go or print and go) for encouraging him to write different types of sentences? I would scribe for him at first until he got use to it. BTW, he tells stories with more complex sentences but that's more like talking than writing. I'd like him to start thinking purposefully about ways to form a sentence before we continue with the next two Aesop books next year.

 

I'm thinking of something where it guides very specifically like "now add an adjective to your sentence."

[Sarah0000]

Oh BTW, he does cursive copywork and the sentences are a little more diverse but not particularly complex. Next year I plan for him to start SYS D which will have more complex sentence models than he is currently writing.

[luuknam]

I'm wondering if maybe you want Killgallon's Sentence Composing for Elementary, but 5yo seems kind of young for it (but, I haven't used it yet).

 

For a 5yo I would just let him write simplistic sentences like "The car is on the cliff", especially if he's also doing things like copywork - with a bit of luck he'll get bored with writing the same simplistic sentences over and over and might decide to write something else. 

[Syllieann]

You could introduce him to the idea sentence openers. Start with one, work on it a few weeks, then show him another. You can download the iew app lite version for free. The sentence openers are listed in there along with examples. Also, look at the unit on writing from pictures. There are some question ideas in there. Rather than just telling him to write a sentence to go with the picture, you could have him write a sentence that tells how it got that way, how a character is feeling, or what the problem (conflict) might be in the story.

[Sarah0000]

He's been writing those sentences for a year now. It wouldn't have bothered me except he stated he was purposefully doing that.

 

The IEW app is very helpful, actually. The Sentence starters and the teeter totters will help give me direction for him to expand his sentences a little. I'm thinking of doing that in the context of BW retellings or Rory's Story Cubes so it's fun, and then just waiting and seeing if it spills over into his usual sentence writing.

 

Something like Killgallon is probably too much right now, but I'm considering doing the first parts (the non parsing parts) of The Sentence Family with him in the Fall. Just to get him thinking about different types of sentences.

 

As you can probably tell I'm not well versed in writing instruction at all. I need to remedy that now.