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Help!! Sentences for a 2nd grader??


DragonFaerie
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I am having the worst time teaching my DS to write! We do narrations for history and literature (he dictates, I write it out, he copies it) and he does a writing workbook where he brainstorms ideas and we work together on writing a short story. Then he copies our story into his notebook. But I think all he is doing when he copies is copying the letters. He's not really reading the words or the sentences (even though I have him read it back to me before he goes to copy it). Today he had to write two sentences in his grammar book. Here's what he wrote:

 

Lucy wint back home and took a nap and nap and nap until she.

Woke up and aet and aet until she stop and drink and drink.

 

UGH! I'm getting really frustrated. He doesn't seem to understand where a sentence should start and stop or that it should contain a complete thought. What should I do? Is there something out there that is great for teaching sentence writing? Does he need something that I am just not seeing (besides more spelling work :tongue_smilie:)?

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Our DS1 has something like dysgraphia going on and he has great difficulty with both the physical act of writing, and with composing something to be written. Just a general difficulty with written expression.

 

Remedia has some very simple and affordable workbooks for sentence writing. Their search appears to be working now, so if you search their products for "sentence" you will see the workbooks.

 

I also bought some magnetic sentence-building items from Primary Concepts. Their search is also not very useful. I would recommend just digging through the entire category of literacy manipulative kits. These might be helpful:

 

http://www.primaryconcepts.com/sent-stories/Inst-Sent-Kit.asp or http://www.primaryconcepts.com/sent-stories/Inst-Sent-Tiles.asp

 

http://www.primaryconcepts.com/sent-stories/Mag-Word-Tiles-2.asp

Edited by laundrycrisis
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What are you using for grammar? It appears to me that he doesn't understand the concept of subjects & predicates.

 

I am using a Harcourt Language Arts workbook. It covers stuff like nouns, pronouns, verbs, etc, but does very little with sentence construction. I'd like to keep going with the grammar because he does need to learn the part of speech and all, but I'm thinking I need to add something better for writing, something that focuses on the parts of a sentence and sentence construction. So far, all of the writing curriculums and workbooks I have found are more about writing stories and brainstorming ideas and such and I think he's just not ready for that yet. I need something much more basic. That also explains his frustration with having to write ANYTHING that he cannot just copy from me.

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Our DS1 has something like dysgraphia going on and he has great difficulty with both the physical act of writing, and with composing something to be written. Just a general difficulty with written expression.

 

Remedia has some very simple and affordable workbooks for sentence writing. Their search appears to be working now, so if you search their products for "sentence" you will see the workbooks.

 

I also bought some magnetic sentence-building items from Primary Concepts. Their search is also not very useful. I would recommend just digging through the entire category of literacy manipulative kits. These might be helpful:

 

http://www.primaryconcepts.com/sent-stories/Inst-Sent-Kit.asp or http://www.primaryconcepts.com/sent-stories/Inst-Sent-Tiles.asp

 

http://www.primaryconcepts.com/sent-stories/Mag-Word-Tiles-2.asp

 

Thanks. I'll look into the Remedia stuff. I don't think the tiles are what I'm after, though. If he's given the words, he can arrange them into a sentence without a problem. But he cannot seem to compose his own sentences. In fact, when we do narration, he runs on and on explaining to me what he wants to say. Why use five words when fifty will do? :001_huh:

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My DD is using 2nd grade Growing With Grammar and has been studying subject and predicate for the past couple weeks. It usually also gives the child an idea and they need to write 2 sentences at the end of each lesson. This has helped my DD tremendously. She was writing like your DC at the beginning of this year. I also have her write a complete sentence using her spelling words. She is using Rod & Staff Spelling and loves it. She has 12 words each week and does 4 sentences each day for 3 days. It has helped so much.

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I have been having great success getting my dd7 to write really good sentences.

 

R&S is very thorough yet easy to implement. We do almost all of the lessons orally right now. The first 25 lessons are all about what makes a good sentence. Then subsequent lessons talk about the different parts of speech and how they are used in a sentence.

 

WWE has been incredibly helpful in getting her to formulate her own sentences. I like how it is scripted to help me guide her towards answering with complete sentences.

 

Anyway...just a couple other options for you.

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i would have your child say the sentence aloud before writing it down. this helped my daughter a great deal in second grade & the sentences made much more sense. if what they say isn't a complete sentence, ask simple questions to help your child make sense of things (who? what? where? when?). anyway - this helped us.:)

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Thanks for the suggestions. I was actually already looking at Growing with Grammar, but I was looking at the 3rd grade book for next year. Maybe I need to take a look at the 2nd grade book instead. Would I use GWG for grammar or writing or would I just consider it both?

 

I like the idea of sentences with the spelling words, too. I'll have to try that, though I think I'll start small, with just two or three.

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i would have your child say the sentence aloud before writing it down. this helped my daughter a great deal in second grade & the sentences made much more sense. if what they say isn't a complete sentence, ask simple questions to help your child make sense of things (who? what? where? when?). anyway - this helped us.:)

 

I have tried this. I also read his work back to him today and he didn't hear anything wrong with it. Of course, he does tend to talk this way, too, rambling on and on with barely a breath.

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