What do you think of this narration?

[Kuovonne]

I decided to start the school year by finding a baseline for how DD is doing in the three Rs compared to her grade level. For reading and math, I used the DORA and DOMA tests from Let's Go Learn. But they don't have a test for writing.

 

Is anyone interested in telling me what they think of this bit of writing?

 

Here is DD's written narration of one of our field trips. We started by having her tell me what she saw and I wrote down key words. Then I gave her a brief outline of what to write: start with where we went, then describe what she saw, and finally write what she liked best. Then I left her alone. When she was done writing, she drew a picture to go with it. Here is her narration. I have retained her spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

 

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My mom my sister and I. Whent to the Houstn Ballet we saw rats. And got to take pictures with some of the dancers. And I saw a huge crystal light we saw a gril in pink she looked like a princess. in a chair becuse she was in a chair. I liked the princess best and of corse in the chair

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Here's another written narration from the book "Ramona and Her Father." This one was written with no guidance, except when she explicitly asked how to spelling something. Again, her spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are retained.

 

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Ramona wanted her father to stop smoking. Her father tried to but ended up smoking a few times. But one day Ramona had never this her father threw his cigarettes acros the the table!

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BTW, I'm asking on this board not because I think she's advanced at writing (I don't know if she is or isn't). However, I'm afraid that if I posted on the K-8 board, I'd get slammed for making a first grader write so much.

Edited September 5, 2009 by Kuovonne

[Tree House Academy]

Well...considering that my 5th grader, on occasion, has produced similar work, I think she is doing well. LOL

 

No, really, for her age, her spelling is NOT bad at all. Definitely need to work on punctuation and stopping the thought process. But, like you said, she is a 1st grader. I think she did well.

[Blessedfamily]

I think it's great. :001_smile: She will progress in punctuation as the year goes on. Save it and compare her progress later.

[EKS]

I think these are great. The one about the ballet has some good description. What's good is that you have material to work with here. You just need to fine tune the mechanics and so forth and you have years to get that right!

[Truscifi]

For her age, these are wonderful. Getting ds5 to write something that long is like pulling teeth, although he will narrate for me to write with no problem. Are you starting grammar with her yet? If she is going to be writing regularly and is receptive, you might want to start the basics of grammar - what are nouns and verbs, capitalizing proper nouns and the first letter of a sentence, different punctuation marks (we only cover 4 at this point-period, comma, question mark, and exclamation point). Nothing strenuous, and we only spend 10 minutes 2 or 3 times a week on it. Just my .02 ;)

[Kuovonne]

Thank you all for your feedback. I'm starting to get a feel for how insanely asynchronous my daughter's development is even within the realm of language arts. I'm going to take your comments to mean that my daughter

qualifies as accelerated in writing for the purposes of posting on this board.

 

I do work with her on grammar and mechanics through copywork and dictation.