Help- Kindergarten Question(s)

[scmama]

Hi there! I usually don't post just respond to little things here. But I have a question of sorts.

My son just turned 5 this month,July 17, and we have started kindergarten. He enjoys math, doesn't give me any problems at all when it comes to that subject. The problem comes when he's doing handwriting and practicing writing his letters. It's not the type of books we are using, or anything like that. He just doesn't want to write out the letters. I'm sure there's a bit of laziness associated to this. And we try to make it fun, but the fact is this has to be done. He has to learn his letters and how to write.

 

My mom (who is very supportive with our decision to hs) told me that he might just NOT be ready, saying that he just turned 5 and that he's a boy and doesn't want to sit. Everything else he loves. He knows his colors, his shapes, how to count, number cognition and most of his letter recognition. He loves animals and dinosaurs, and anything science related. I've tried to incorporate that, but there's only so much you can connect with those subjects to the base of writing out the letters. I don't know if he just needs more hand coordination skills, or what. He's a bright boy.

 

So I guess my question is: Is it possible that he's just not ready to sit down and do the handwriting part yet. Is it possible that he's just too young for all this still? He is the first one I'm going to be hs from kindergarten. I have two other ones who are in 5th and 8th grade. They were in ps until about 2 yrs ago. So this kindergarten stuff is new to me, and maybe I'm just freaking out because he's the one I have to teach to read and write. So, how do you know if you should back off of one thing and keep going with the other stuff that he's comfortable doing? Is it possible that he's just too young, and does it really have something to do with the fact that he's a boy? (My oldest is a boy and he was ready for kindergarten, I worked a lot with him.)

 

I don't want to go on and on and turn this into a vent...I would really appreciate if some one could help me figure this out. What would you guys do if this what your son? Would you push him to sit down and suffer through it, even though it turns into tears? Or would you just go through working on the other stuff, and then start slowly bring back in the letter practicing and writing? Please help!!

 

scmama ~~ Lisa

mama to 3

[Mommee & Baba]

My suggestion would to ease off for a while then go back to the writing.

 

Are you having him write with his finger in paint that is in a ziploc bag? Are you having him write his letters in sand or flour on a cookie sheet? How about having him use jumbo crayons or regular crayons and form his letters on fun colored paper?

 

Maybe have him form the letters with toys on the living room floor. Have him use pillows or stuffed animals to do that. Maybe even have him form his letters on the driveway with chalk.

 

I think it's just time to pull off the pencil and paper for a couple weeks and then re-visit the issue. I'm sorry if you mentioned it but what are you using for his writing? My dc love the approach of Handwriting without Tears. My dd8 doesn't like HWOT once we're past the intro things, but it might be a good idea to have him do swirls on a snails shell, add a mane to a lions face, draw spokes on bike wheel, add grass to the picture...those are the things that the FIRST grade book in HWOT starts and I find this fun for almost any child that is younger. The Kindergarten book and preschool books all have activities like this as well. My dd6 doesn't like to write much at all..so I've had to get fancy and fun with her writing.

[eewaggie99]

Does he have someone (cousins, grandparents, friends) he can write a note to? I've found my daughter is NOT interested in writing her alphabet as individual letters, but tell her she can send a letter to someone, and I have to limit her sentences. We started out slow: Dear Relative, I miss you, Love Daughter. After a few weeks of writing letters, she started adding additional sentences of greater length. She's five and she'll write two to three sentences of three to five words each. She tells me what she wants to write, I copy it to a dry erase board, and we sit together as she copies the letter.

 

I've also found she's more willing to practice individual letters. Take a look at your handwriting sheets. If they require a full page of letters, I would find another resource. Young children need to build up strength in their fine motor skills. If my daughter sees a full line or page of letters is required, she immediately throws a fit, anticipating the pain. I've started limiting the number she writes anywhere from 3-5 copies. Shorter copy sets but greater repetition help her to get over the amount of work.

 

Hope this helps!

[....]

If you look at my signature, my life has been like that movie Groundhog Day, but with Kindergarten. :tongue_smilie:

 

I agree with your mom. We do a little bit of handwriting practice in K, but we start serious writing in January of 1st grade (someone recommended that in a book somewhere and it seemed to work for us). So, for now, I would hold off. For K last year, we used My Father's World K and there was pretty much no writing - just some handwriting sheets here and there.

 

Forgot to add: If you are looking for a writing program for later (halfway thru 1st grade), we are big fans of Writing with Ease. My older kids' writing took huge leaps with that program. We've used it every year from WWE1. Also, the Peace Hill Press website has audio lectures on teaching writing.

Edited July 26, 2011 by starrbuck12

[soonermomma]

One thing that might work, is to have him write about things he enjoys. Maybe have him write a list of his favorite dinosaurs, or write the color of the animal under their picture. Making it fun and very informal just may do the trick. Good Luck!

[2_girls_mommy]

I agree w/the others. Back off. It is very possible he is not ready for just that part of it. Use other ways to teach writing (use shaving cream on the table, and let him use his finger to write in it :)

 

When you do get out paper after doing a fun activity like that, have him write one or two of the letters and that is it. Let him use crayons or markers if he would rather. Work up to more later.

 

Keep up the stuff he is good at and that doesn't hurt him.

 

Also keep up working on fine motor skills in other areas. Use clay to strengthen muscles. Practice cutting w/scissors. Find activities for him to do that include pinching clothes pins (like maybe hanging pictures on a line you set up for him, or flaschards of the letters.) and use tweezers to pick up things and move them from one bowl to another, like pom poms. When my dd took preschool gymnastics classes they would include these types of fine motor skill activities along w/their gross motor skills ones, because that is something they are all still developing. I got a lot of good ideas from that class. HTH!

[Chris in VA]

Agreeing with everyone about backing off while strengthening fine motor skills and using other avenues for writing practice--

 

You can also use magnetic/wooden Montessori letters to talk about sounds and do some simple spelling. There's wonderful Monti work with the "moveable alphabet" as they call it. The kids learn the letters then place them beside pictures (objects first, then pictures of objects, actually) according to initial sound. Then later, they learn to spell out simple CVC words. Reading actually comes after they spell out the word.

 

There are lots of Monti do-it-yourself sites that could be a fun way to keep up and improve his letter/phonics skills while his fine motor skills and confidence (and "want to") catch up!

[micheller1]

i agree with everyone else :) Maybe you could take this time do some of the above suggestions as well as work on improving fine motor skills through cutting/pasting, picking things up with tweezers and moving them (sorting or something of the like) and pouring exercise. These are all fun and important skills to have.

 

Writing will come in time. My kids personally love to finger write in shaving cream and sand. The messier the better right?

[amy g.]

I taught Kindergarten and preschool for years before having my own children. I'm doing Kindergarten with my almost 5 year old now.

 

Focus on correct pencil grip, and forming letters correctly, but only have him actually write about 10% of the words.

 

Miss Bossy is really getting better at her reading. So say the work sheet says "Read the clues and write the correct word in the blank." I have her read the sentence and CIRCLE the correct word. Then I use a highlighter to write the word in the blank, all the while, describing what I'm doing. "Pull straight down, Pull down again. pick up my pencil, then cross."

 

When we finish the whole page, I send her to her desk, and ask her to pick one word to trace.

 

When my son was younger, I used a highlighter for his narrations too. He would tell me intricate descriptions of what we had read, but he couldn't write that much, so I'd ask him to just trace the first sentence, and I built up from there.

[lionfamily1999]

It is possible he's not ready :D

 

I started Luke out by writing his name. It was messy, instead of learning one letter to perfection he learned the whole word. However, he LOVES to write his name. From there we learned Mom and Dad, then Jo and Drew. Luke learned how to write "love" and started writing notes.

 

Now, we use a handwriting program (ZB), because his handwriting isn't the best, but he learned to enjoy writing first, by writing about his favorite subjects :)

[twoforjoy]

I'd also go with "not ready."

 

Handwriting has been by far my biggest struggle with my DS. I wish I hadn't pushed it so much. From about 5 on, he'd willingly write certain things for fun (notes, lists, stories), but doing handwriting practice always resulted in tears, frustration, anger, etc. Or, he'd just rush through it sloppily. His handwriting was horrible. He'd use a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters depending on which form was easiest for him, letters were different sizes and irregularly spaced, etc.

 

He turned 7 in May, and it's just been in the last maybe two months that we've seen really significant improvements in his handwriting. And, the funny thing is that I've really eased up on formal handwriting instruction. But he was making a list the other day, and DH and I looked at it and were shocked. His letters were all in the right case, they were similar sizes, and they were very legible. I think he was just lacking the fine motor skills for a while. And, he's actually started to show an interest in handwriting, which is especially surprising. He's really eager to learn cursive. Now that it's not so difficult for him, he's not as averse to it.

 

One thing DS really liked doing, that got him writing, was writing in a journal at night, and then my responding. He was allowed to spend 10-15 minutes before bed writing, he could bring the journal to me, and then I'd write a reply for him to read the next morning. He really loved doing that, and he still sometimes writes in a journal and then asks me to write back. So something like that might be a good way to encourage some handwriting without putting too much formal emphasis on it before he's ready.

[Terabith]

messed up, wrong box

[zenjenn]

Sounds to me like he's not ready. I agree with your mom.

 

However, this doesn't mean the only option is to sit and wait, either. Some pre-writing activities I'd recommend:

 

- drawing

- coloring

- dot-to-dots (alphabet dot-to-dots are great, and if he's a superstar in math, skip-counting dot-to-dots are fun too)

- scissor skills

- letter tracing activities (on paper, drawing letters with a finger in sand)

- clay play (shaping letters out of clay can be fun)

- and of course lots and lots of reading and/or read-alouds

 

Anything that exercises fine motor skills and increases letter recognition will facilitate his ability to write once he's ready to learn. :)

[Ellie]

I don't think you need to push, although I have no problem with your calling him a kindergartener. That's what "kindergarten" is supposed to be: coloring and learning shapes and becoming familiar with letters and numbers. It shouldn't be academic at all.

[Cinder]

My sons sound like yours. The older was writing at 3yo and taught himself to read at 4yo. The younger didn't take to writing until . . . about 8yo. And he still has awful handwriting. At 10yo we did intensive cursive practice and he's much better at cursive than print. But even though he had trouble with handwriting and had speech delays, he learned to read early. And he did very well with math. We did a lot of his work orally early on. Just keep an eye out for the skills your son is ready to move ahead in and go slower with the ones that need more time to develop.

[DawnL]

Sounds to me like he's not ready. I agree with your mom.

 

However, this doesn't mean the only option is to sit and wait, either. Some pre-writing activities I'd recommend:

 

- drawing

- coloring

- dot-to-dots (alphabet dot-to-dots are great, and if he's a superstar in math, skip-counting dot-to-dots are fun too)

- scissor skills

- letter tracing activities (on paper, drawing letters with a finger in sand)

- clay play (shaping letters out of clay can be fun)

- and of course lots and lots of reading and/or read-alouds

 

Anything that exercises fine motor skills and increases letter recognition will facilitate his ability to write once he's ready to learn. :)

 

:iagree:

 

I like http://www.worksheetworks.com/

In the English Language section they have some nice exercises for pre-handwriting, including a sheet for practicing with scissors. You can request different things and it varies each time.

 

This one http://www.esl-kids.com/ is geared toward kids learning english as a second language, but they have good worksheets there, too. I like that the writing can be minimal on some of them.

 

I love this blog http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/k4-curriculum Erica has a ton of great ideas. You can print most of her work individually for free, or if you decide you want it all, all at once, she charges a small fee for the whole deal. You can find a lot of good letter and word practice without having to write a lot.

 

Then there's always www.filefolderfun.com Lots of good file folder games there, for different things to practice without writing.

[happypamama]

I'm with lots of the PPs -- he might just not be ready. He's only barely 5; at that age, I think my son could write his name (just the first name, all caps, large) but wasn't ready for any more than that. I started him at 5.5 with the BrainQuest kindergarten workbook, where he would trace a letter or two each day and then write a few letters on his own -- that was just enough for him, enough for the practice but not so much that it was overwhelming.

 

Every child is different; my son wasn't ready to read until more recently.

[scmama]

Thank you all very much for responding!! I really appreciate all the great ideas, and links!

You've helped me to settle my nerves and realize that it will come when he's ready for it! I can sit back and breathe now!!

 

Thank you so much!!

Lisa

[EthiopianFood]

They will always be on different levels in different areas. That is one of the huge benefits of homeschooling: you can work at their own pace! This is how education really SHOULD be for all children. If a child is ready to move ahead in one area, why should they be held back because they aren't doing something else very well yet?? It really makes no sense, when you think about it. :)