I hope this year's writing has gotten better for you. Sorry I'm not going to be very helpful to you in answering your questions, since I am in the same perplexing boat as you. Writing has become the main battleground for me and my eight-year-old boy. He is otherwise a very good student. He enjoys reading, does very well in math, loves history and science, memorizes Latin, and practices the piano. But when it comes to writing, the bottom falls out. I have done Writing With Ease last year and this year (we are in level 2), but I find he really struggles with it. He finds the narration exercises tedious. (I tried the workbook this year, since last year he balked at combining WWE and other subjects. He always accused me of "adding extra stuff"). He whines/complains/cries over every copywork and dictation assignment. I often shorten the required writing selections, due to this problem. He also hates writing his spelling words, so I know some of this problem is simply a distaste for the physical discipline of writing. However, he also gets frustrated summarizing passages. Despite weeks and weeks of me asking him "leading questions" to help him summarize, he gets hung up on details, and also in trying to make the sentences as short as he can, since he will have to write one of them. I'm rethinking what I should do for next year. I'm considering just having handwriting and grammar and dropping formal writing altogether, but making sure he does more writing in his other subjects. Any thoughts and ideas on this?