Writing Curriculums for Reluctant Writers?

[AuntPol]

I am planning on homeschooling my son next year for third grade. I have pretty much decided on what I am going to do in all areas except writing. He is a reluctant writer. He currently has a 504 plan for writing in his public school. Part of the issue IMHO is that NC writing standards are not developmentally appropriate for the fine motor skills of the age and this is even more an issue as he is the youngest in his grade AND has sensory issues that led to fine motor delay. The other is he gets mental blocks and has a hard time being "creative" -he is an perfectionist and has meltdowns when something is perfect. He doesn't like the idea of having to practice lol but we are coaching him through that. At home, he does some copywork for penmanship and then I let him do creative writing on the computer. He has the ability to be a great writer and when we can get him to write, he does amazing things but the issue is getting him to do it.

[Carmen_and_Company]

I'd begin with copywork only, then move to dictation by the end of the school year along with having your ds narrarate what he learned from literature, history or science to you once or twice a week.

SWB has a wonderful CD on teaching writing and is slated to release a new writing program any moment: http://peacehillpress.com/ .

[PeterPan]

I 2nd Carmen's advice that you slowly transition him into dictation. Have you tried having him write his own narrations? If you can get WTM or SWB's cd "Writing Without Fear", you'll see the steps. (copywork leading to dictation leading to the ability to get an oral narration down on paper) I was going to suggest you consider Writing Tales, but if he struggles with the motor skills what you might want to do instead is Imitations in Writing next year (3rd). The models are shorter and there are books in the Imitations series on a variety of topics, so you could easily find something to interest him. When he can comfortably do those rewrites of short models, then he could move into Writing Tales, even waiting on WT till 4th grade. The Imitations models (and hence writing projects) are so much shorter, they're going to be very do-able. In that way you could do a little copywork, a little dictation, a little writing each day in little nibbles, little bites, rather than just ONE HUGE project, kwim?

[AuntPol]

I like the looks of Writing With Ease but I hate the wait. I would also like to see examples other than Year 1. DS would be Year 2 or 3.

 

Writing Tales looks interesting.

 

I stumbled across Igniting Your Writing? Anyone have experience with that.

[Kate in Arabia]

Some of the things you mention about your ds are the same as mine, particularly when he was that age -- perfectionist, not creative in writing, mental blocks, etc. We started with Writing Strands but he literally would be in tears every day. The book would say, "list five words to describe a pencil" and he just could not think of even one, and would have a meltdown (tears, not anger).

 

We switched to Classical Writing, and it has been a fantastic for him. He was still a little reluctant in the beginning, but no tears and very quickly he progressed with it and that confidence spread into other areas, like being able to write his own history narrations. I attribute it to the program, and also probably to additional maturity. He is 10 now (Dec birthday); he has finished the first level of Classical Writing (Aesop) and is now doing the first level of Poetry, which surprisingly he is really excited about.

 

Kate

[AuntPol]

We had same issue with the pencil exercise too in Writing Strands. It didn't work for either my reluctant writer or my prolific writer.

[sassenach]

Have you listened to SWB's seminar on writing? I think if you did, you could get a good idea of what WWE would be like. From what I know of it, it sounds like it would be a good fit for your son. I haven't done WT 1, but from what I've seen, it seem like it would work as well. Good luck,