How much writing in 4th grade?

[Tiramisu]

I think I read in an online syllabus sample from Mother of Divine Grace that it's good to have children in 4th grade write in one subject a day but it's not good overburden them with writing at this age. I'm paraphrasing in a big way here and it's been a long time since I've read that, but I'm a big fan of Laura Berquist's and like to store her little gems in my head.

 

Anyway, how much should I have dd9 write in 4th grade? She finds too much writing burdensome. Last year she did summaries from mythology stories and history, usually short paragraphs but some longer, as well as some history dictation. We also added WWE2 at the end of the year, but had her write the narrations herself.

 

This year she will have opportunites to write with Writing Tales 1, as well do narrations in science and history (about 2x a week each). Actually, I like WWE and might wind up getting the WWE3 workbook when it comes out if I feel dd needs more work on figuring out what's central in a reading passage.

 

Does this seem like enough writing?

 

Thanks for your help and suggestions.

[Tiramisu]

bump :001_smile:

[HiddenJewel]

The Writing Tales and narration definitely seem enough to me.

 

In 4th grade I still use oral narration as the basis for composition. Depending on the student there might be some shorter written narrations and perhaps some beginning outlining or at least picking the main points of the selection.

[Tiramisu]

Thanks, HiddenJewel, for the helpful feedback.

 

With this child, I feel like I walk a fine line between enough and too much.

[HiddenJewel]

Thanks, HiddenJewel, for the helpful feedback.

 

With this child, I feel like I walk a fine line between enough and too much.

 

One thing you could do instead of adding more types of work is to add more depth. Require more detail in the narrations or things like that.

[Ali in OR]

I hope to have dd write a page or so maybe 3 or 4 days per week. Of course that's easy to say while we're still in the summer planning phase--we'll see what actually happens this fall! Writing Tales would be one of the 3-4 days. One day will probably be a book report. We haven't done those before but she will be doing more independent reading as part of history. We may use the grammar level writing prompts in Biblioplan for the first time. They are usually fun things like diary entries. Maybe there will be a little writing in science sometimes, maybe a little in R&S. I haven't been great about turning narration into writing--maybe we need to try that.

[jengjohnson]

I'm trying to bump my daughter's writing up this year. She's doing daily copywork, dictation, Writing Strands, and a written narration each day which rotates between history, science, and reading. She only writes in cursive when forced to, so I force her for copywork, but nothing else yet.

 

Last year she would write several pages at a time, but only every other week or so. I'm trying to be more consistent about doing a bit each day so she can build up slowly. She seems to like it and doesn't complain.

[plimsoll]

We did about an hour a day of writing in 4th grade.

[Tiramisu]

Thank you, everyone, for your feedback. It's very helpful to hear what others are doing in trying to figure out if I'm on track.

[Omma]

We did about an hour a day of writing in 4th grade.

 

When you say an hour a day of writing, does that count teacher time learning about how to write, too? I am doing Ancients this year and was going to use IEW's Ancient History themed lessons for writing. Will that be enough in addition to writing narration pages for SOTW 1? I also have an almost 8 dd that will be tagging along. She writes cursive beautifully already... can I have her do the same work as him, too, or is that too much for her?

 

Thanks so much for letting me chime in... I know I really need to bump up the writing requirements for my ds, at least, as we have only done WWE 2 (a little more than 1/2 of it) and not much else writing this past year... except for what he has gotten in R & S 3 (we are only in Unit 4, so haven't finished that yet, either). He (and my dd) have done the KWO from the intro IEW DVD's a few times, as well.

 

Brenda

[Laura Corin]

I'd probably expect five or more pages a week, including all writing except maths. We do most subjects orally still at that age, but the English writing starts to increase.

 

Laura

[plimsoll]

When you say an hour a day of writing, does that count teacher time learning about how to write, too?

 

It does not include time I spend learning how to teach writing. (That's done outside of school hours, sometimes keeping me up half the night studying....)

 

The hour a day of writing is time spent working with one of the writing curricula we use (IEW, CW, Imitation in Writing). If the time is spent doing keyword outlines or watching an IEW dvd, that's part of the hour.

 

Also, if I give him a writing assignment from a history text (e.g., compare Kush and Egypt), I don't count that as history - we do it during the hour of writing.

 

Basically, I view the hour a day of writing as time to work on producing polished written output, regardless of the writing's subject matter.

[Omma]

It does not include time I spend learning how to teach writing. (That's done outside of school hours, sometimes keeping me up half the night studying....)

 

The hour a day of writing is time spent working with one of the writing curricula we use (IEW, CW, Imitation in Writing). If the time is spent doing keyword outlines or watching an IEW dvd, that's part of the hour.

 

Also, if I give him a writing assignment from a history text (e.g., compare Kush and Egypt), I don't count that as history - we do it during the hour of writing.

 

Basically, I view the hour a day of writing as time to work on producing polished written output, regardless of the writing's subject matter.

 

Thank you. That is very helpful to know (also the part about staying up late at night learning how to teach writing! So that's the secret! :tongue_smilie:)

 

Brenda

[Moni]

How much writing in 4th grade?

A little less than she is able, and then incrementally increase as time goes by.

 

:seeya: