7 yr old hates writing need help

[aim4balance]

Hi,

This is a tad long, sorry, I'm homeschooling for the first time this fall and I feel like I'm figuring out so many things right now and need some help. My oldest is 7 and going into 2nd grade. One of the main issues he had in public school was the lack of time to get all his writing done. Per his teachers he was an excellent student, good at all subjects but would get distracted easily *ONLY* when writing, would just procastinate, and the teacher would require him to stay inside at recess for 5 min for him to finish his assignment. Especially if the writing assignment included creative thinking--he loves creating things with his hands (we joke we should keep the recycling bins in his room!) but is totally opposite when it comes to creative writing. Anyway staying inside for recess happened 2-3 times a week, and twice he missed all of recess throughout 1st grade. We were told (as many times as we had meetings) that this was standard policy for every grade and they would not change it for us. Of course all the kids with behavior issues ALSO missed 5 min of recess per the disciplinary policy; so you can get the picture that overall this wore on his self esteem even though he's a pretty resilient kid who was never in trouble once in either K or 1st.

 

Ok so now here we are, gearing up for the fall. Since having read TWTM I really appreciated how the classical approach did not stress creative writing from a young age, I felt like it helped me understand my son's reluctance to do it. However it does include a lot of writing regardless it seems. So to start practicing what our hs days will look like (something dh and I needed to do to really see how it works for our family and how our kids will respond to us) we've done a few weeks worth of lessons--an example is I have SOTW on cd and we started listening to it, asking the boys to narrate things back to us, we did an activity (built a teepee, pretended we were nomads for a few days which was really fun!), then we had them draw a picture and for my 7 yr old he had to copy 2-3 sentances I wrote while I wrote down what my 5 yr old narrated to me. (side note--typing all that out to see if someone will tell me if I'm teaching the classical approach right?!)

 

Ok back to the writing. It took him 30 min to write out the 3 sentances for this one assignment and he fussed about it the whole time! He said to me "Mom I'm going to hate homeschooling as much as school if I have to write this much every day." I asked him why writing was so hard for him. He said "Its boring and I already know how to write! Why do I have to write over and over and over??" I tried to explain that he does write well, but that he still makes mistakes with sentance structure etc and practicing writing will help so that he will get really good at it.

 

For the record in terms of his personality, he is type A, likes following rules. This a child who had the option 2 years in a row to either go to a democratic school nearby where he literally got to play all day every day if he wanted, or go to public school; he picked public both years b/c he said "playing is fun, but learning is fun too Mom." He will read for hours and do any workbook I hand to him. But when I put a piece of writing paper in front of him he is totally resistant; he will erase and erase over and over and just sit there playing with something on his lap. I honestly don't know how his teacher got him to write as much as she did!!

 

Please help me figure how to approach this. I haven't bought a writing curriculum yet. DH and I don't know if we shouldn't just back off from writing entirely for a year? My only hesitation with that is if he wants to return to public school in the future he'd be behind, b/c he loved school other than the experience with writing. Does it sometimes take some kids until they are 9 to really not mind writing? Will he always hate it? I'd really love to hear from someone with a similar child! Thank you so much for getting this far with my post!!

[Mommee & Baba]

My dd8 was really dreading anything that required alot of writing. For her writing 2 full sentences was ALOT of writing. I personally didn't find it to be worth the battle. Because when we were doing other subjects that did require her to write a little she didn't have a problem with it as it went with what we were doing..such as writing the planets name and how many moons it had..ect. But when she had to sit and copy she didn't like it at all.

 

So we found WWE (Writing with Ease)! And honestly she LOVES it!! It's only 4 days a week. It's SHORT and it allows the child to pick the sentence they get to copy. She always picks the SHORT ones but it's written so PRETTY and so NICE, which is my rule if she picks the shortest sentence. Even though she doesn't realize I'd make her do it that way even if she picked the longest one. :lol:

 

Now dd8 does WWE2 and the writing is more than what she was comfortable with when I had her copy what I wrote before we found WWE. But because it's along with passages and she knows that writing is OVER for the day when she completes it. It's much less stressful for her. AND she enjoys it!

 

I hope someone is able to help you out. I feel like writing is very important and I would suggest grabbing a copy of WWE1 to get him started on something very full and very rewarding for not only him but you too.

[boscopup]

I think copying 2-3 sentences is probably more than he's ready for. I had to gradually work up to that amount with my son (just turned 7), and I still don't have him copy his whole narrations yet. We just do ONE sentence.

 

I highly recommend listening to SWB's lecture on teaching writing in the elementary years. It really fleshes out the process. Also, keep in mind that you're starting from the beginning. Get WWE1 and let him ease into the writing. The first sentence to copy in that book is "Pa owned a pig." He can do that. That would be his only copywork the first day.

 

Very gradually increase the writing, but no need to have him copy whole narrations yet. :)

[black_midori]

My questions would be is it that he can't do it easily or that he truly finds it dull and pointless? Writing with a purpose might be the best way to go about it - like someone mentioned above, writing planet names when studying the solar system and things like that. If he really doesn't have trouble with the mechanics of writing but rather the work of it (like it sounds from your above post), then maybe you should just include it in your other classes.

 

Mine actually both do very well with writing (5 & 7), although they don't jump to write on their own that often (drawing, though - definitely!), so I don't have any first-hand experience. However, I generally include little bits of writing throughout the school day rather than large chunks at a time (although I do WWE 1 & 2 with them, but they don't consider it as much of an issue). For instance, we do All About Spelling 2 days a week and day 1 he writes the 10 words on the list and does new teaching then day 2 he does 2 sentences. We also do Shurley English 3 times a week and he generally writes 1 or 2 sentences for that.

 

If you start with WWE, which my kids both really like!!, I'd recommend starting at Level 1 because Level 2 definitely has longer sentences.

[blessedmom3]

A few weeks ago I started IEW SWI A with my 7 yo . Really worth the money! I think your son will like following the rules like you said. Mr' Pudewa does give rules and in his DVD he will tell your son what to write .They also have an IEW version for younger ebook , only $5 if you think IEW A is too much for him .I think it is called Articles and Stories for units 1&2 .

 

I've tried WWE but since I put my son in PS every spring , we need a more intensive approach to writing, not just copywork/narration/dictation ( we do these through his reading or history). For this reason I use BJU in addition to IEW . My son loves both and does very well with both. They hold my hand as a teacher too since I am a very bad writer . I have a math brain and also English is my 3rd language !

 

If you do not consider putting him back to school or he does not have to be tested ( in our state we are required to test for math , reading and writing) , then WWE works great for reluctant writers, although I only used 1&2 .

[kalanamak]

I feel like writing is very important and I would suggest grabbing a copy of WWE1 to get him started on something very full and very rewarding for not only him but you too.

 

I would get WWE1 and inch into it. I don't see the point of souring a child on a topic at that age. I make sure my son does some of what he doesn't like, but short, and as interesting as possible. We have fun with dictation. He loves all the funny faces I make, and how over-dramatically I read the lines. He has also enjoyed almost every except in WWE, so much so, he often asks for the book from the library.

[sbgrace]

My 7 year olds would balk at copying 2-3 sentences. I'd think about Writing With Ease.

[Bang!Zoom!]

Just a quick thought...

 

Can you provide him with a range of media to write with? Different kinds?

 

Special papers, gel pens, some of this and some of that. Maybe have him pick them out?

[aim4balance]

Thanks so much for all the responses. Based on what you all said I think we'll start with WWE 1. Starting on an easy note I hope will give him back some enjoyment. Maybe his confidence in the area is still suffering also from having to miss recess 2-3 times per week. Yes content does seem to have something to do with his reluctance but it doesn't erase his writing resitance entirely.

 

black_midori I definitely think he finds it dull and lifeless. He does write very neatly and well when he does write though.

 

Thanks again everyone!

[RahRah]

My DS will be seven in August and isn't all that into writing yet - he writes well enough, not picture perfect, but much better than six months ago!

 

He was and still is a relcutant writer and what I did was incorporate his arty side into his writing by having him do copywork of one or two sentences a day that makes for a good picture, so he writes the sentence(s) and then creates the picture to go with the sentence(s).

 

We're slowly ramping up how many words and/or sentences he'll write each day and he's recently decided he'd like to make up his own sentences (yeah!) too. For summer I've been incorporating basic grammar into what he's writing out so that we can ramp that up in the fall and keep things moving along into FLL and WWE.