WWE-shall we move on?

[Catherine]

Disclaimer-my fourth grader, turning ten, is finishing WWE 2. Because of some earlier challenges we were having, we had him tested, and two years ago learned he's got some challenges with working memory. The tester said he also had "profound" dysgraphia and ADD. Whatever. He's not taking medication and generally does OK in school, though math and writing have always been difficult. Hence, we are two years "behind" in WWE.

 

I notice that the final evaluation lesson instructions state that the child should be able to do the dictation after only two repetitions. He cannot do this. His performance is variable-some days, he can do it with near perfect accuracy after 3 repetitions. Others, at least half, it takes a minimum of 5 reps AND several corrections as he writes in memory, spelling and punctuation. Should I move on? I am seeing little improvement with repetition and my sense is that he is simply not capable of doing this within the designated parameters.

[2GAboys]

I am not a professional. I have a 10 year old son just finishing WWE 3. I diid WWE2 with him last year. He has no learning issues I am aware of.

 

I am inclined to repeat what SWB says in the evaluation: spend a few more weeks on dictation. Is he better at one long sentence 12-15 words or two short sentences? If he did well on the narration part and you spend a few more weeks over the summer doing dictation, I think you should move on to WWE3. Also, I strongly believe in copywork as a way for children to get a mental image of what good sentences are suppose to look and to reinforce capitalization and punctuation. I know there is a "memory" issue you mentioned, but how well do you think he visualizes the sentence(s) you are dictating? If he is just bombing with dictation, I would have him do copywork to strengthen his visualization and make the writing capitalizations, punctuation more second nature. Another suggestion I have is after the first reading of the dicatation-talk about it. Ask him to picture the sentence, is it a statement, question, exclamation, or command sentence, what kind of puctuation does it get? Are there any proper nouns, etc. Always give the correct spellings for him if needed as it is not a spelling assignment and please feel free to disregard anything I suggest as you know your child and I don't. I was just brainstorming.

 

It is helpful to watch SWB's you tube vidoes of her giving her son dicatation at the kitchen table. After the number of repititions suggested, if the child has difficulty reciting it back, suggest they start again from the beginning as it will sometimes trigger the word and/or you may give them a word to help trigger.

 

I sometimes get really bored with doing this 4 days a week (after two yearsx36 weeks). Also, we use FLL and my son has memorized all the poems during those 4 years. Poem memorization is a fabulous way to train the brain to hold info-maybe you could do that too. I think this has helped him as well-plus we did lots of copywork in 2nd and 3rd because I was trying to get him to transition to cursive fast.

[Tracy]

Are you working with a professional to identify the types of activities that will strengthen his working memory and dysgraphia? I would really want to talk with a pro and show them the program to determine if WWE is something that is going to help him or just frustrate him and make him insecure.

[almondbutterandjelly]

My dd was never able to do the dictations within the prescribed limitations. She's a visual spatial learner, and auditory is NOT a strong point. I don't think there is a "should" for that. Skip it and move on. We stopped WWE after level 2. We still do copywork almost every day because it seemed the most effective. Around third grade, I had her learn to type with a fun program, and now she does all her copywork by typing it. It's still only maybe 3 sentences at at time, and we just finished 4th grade. Do what works for your kid. I think SWB has programmed for the super left-brained budding young rocket scientist, and I personally don't know anyone's kid who is capable of doing everything she suggests. Certainly mine is not. That doesn't mean there is a problem. We figure out what works for my dd's learning style and go with it. The information and skills will get in there, just not the way a particular curriculum dictates.

[Colleen in NS]

Disclaimer-my fourth grader, turning ten, is finishing WWE 2. Because of some earlier challenges we were having, we had him tested, and two years ago learned he's got some challenges with working memory. The tester said he also had "profound" dysgraphia and ADD. Whatever. He's not taking medication and generally does OK in school, though math and writing have always been difficult. Hence, we are two years "behind" in WWE.

 

I notice that the final evaluation lesson instructions state that the child should be able to do the dictation after only two repetitions. He cannot do this. His performance is variable-some days, he can do it with near perfect accuracy after 3 repetitions. Others, at least half, it takes a minimum of 5 reps AND several corrections as he writes in memory, spelling and punctuation. Should I move on? I am seeing little improvement with repetition and my sense is that he is simply not capable of doing this within the designated parameters.

 

I wonder if teaching him to type would help. I just say this because when my son was around 9/10, he had the same troubles (although he was doing longer dictations than what are in WWE 2 - and he never really did become able to do the end of WWE 4 dictations perfectly...dd is having the same trouble right now). Not that he was doing WWE - it wasn't out yet, but it came out soon after, so I used it to shore up some skills with him. Anyway, I let him learn to type when he was 10, and then when he got to the point of merging dictation with narration and being able to write his own 3-4 sentence narration, it became MUCH easier for him to hold it in his memory when he typed it. Simply because it was faster than handwriting. And I figured, why not - he will be typing his reports later on anyway.

 

I haven't quite reconciled what I think about the dictations in WWE - the samples in the teacher text are actually longer than what she recommends in the parts where she tells you how to conduct dictation for the rest of each section, and I've never been able to figure out why. And I don't know why the dictations in WWE 4 samples are so long! My son was never able to do those WWE 4 ones perfectly, yet he does just fine now with outlines, rewrites from outlines, and narrations (so, holding his thoughts in his mind until he types them on paper). I don't expect my daughter will be able to do the long WWE 4 ones easily either. It scares me a bit, and I wonder if my kids are missing something important, but I can't figure out what it is. Yet my son can do what he can do, so I figure my daughter will be able to, as well, as long as I help her develop her narration skills properly, give her shorter dictations, teach her grammar, and carefully develop her ability to outline in the next few years.

 

I don't know, I hope sometime SWB will come on here and explain the "why" behind those long dictation samples! :D Cuz I'm just not seeing the necessity of the lengths of them.

[Catherine]

I finally gave up on "perfect" copywork, because I decided he just simply isn't capable of it. How he could NOT be able to write something correctly that's right in front of him, I don't understand. But he was worse at it than dictation, for awhile, until the dictations got longer. And the mistakes he made copying were often spelling mistakes! So he clearly was writing from memory, but his memory was faulty. It just became too frustrating for him to keep rewriting sentences he'd already copied incorrectly once or twice, so I let it go. It wasn't awful, but he consistently did not copy perfectly-there were mistakes of misspellings, a word left out, a wrong words inserted, every time. Ack.

 

Yes, I DO think the problem is that he can't keep a piece of information in his memory long enough to write it down. He tends to improvise, so when I have him repeat the dictated sentence back to me, the mistakes are usually either leaving out a word or phrase, or often, adding a word or phrase. He just feels like-what does it matter if it's perfect? I've tried to explain the rationale for it to him, and he does try, but it's frustratingly hard at times.

 

I'm thinking of trying the Lindamood Bell program, Visualizing and Verbalizing, to help with the mental imagery.

 

Any other thoughts? Any stories of a similar child who "got it" after longer time spent working on these skills?

[2GAboys]

A quick comment on the copywork. The copywork is intended to be supervised the entire time so there should not be a finished product with a mistake because when you supervise, if the child begins to spell the word wrong or forgets the capital letter or punctuation then you are directed by the teachers guide to "genty stop' and have the child correct it immedicately, not after the copywork is finished. The idea is that you are in the ideal position working one on one to reinforce the grammar and conventions during the time the child is writing it out AND the child, by writing the sentence correctly, gets to develop a mental image of what correctly written sentences look likes-a prerequisite skill before dictation or any writing for that matter.

 

Regarding your situation- I am not qualified to comment on how best to work with a child with any learning disabilities (Not saying yours has one) If I realized after the fact that I was suppose to be supervising my child while doing copywork and then gave copywork another shot with my total supervision and guidance, then saw that my child could not copy it correctly, I would get professional help.

[black_midori]

My 7yo son is on WWE2, and I just got to the place that you have them give you the sentence to write down and then you dictate THAT sentence back to them. He generally does pretty decent on the dictation part anyhow, but he seems to do particularly well with THOSE sentences. I assume that the sentences he gives me are in a more "comfortable language" for him, therefore easier to remember (if that makes sense?) - as well as being something HE just told ME! :)

 

Anyhow, for the dictation issues - maybe it would work better if you somehow got the sentences into his own words? I'm picturing, perhaps, a method where you read the sentence to him and ask him to repeat back to you NOT the sentence itself but the idea behind it in his own words. Then use that for the dictation, instead. This would still accomplish the goal of holding the sentence in his head, just an easier-to-hold one!

 

I'm a strong believer in tweaking things as needed to make them work for you and for your kids - I tend to use very scripted curricula items (WWE, AAS, RS), but I end up using them as a guideline to know what to teach and to get tips on exactly how and then generally move away from the script itself...