Help! My son takes too long to write!

[Milknhoney]

Today is day two of third grade. Up til now I have been typing out ds's narrations for history for him. This year I am dictating them back to him to write down. His narration was ten sentences. It took him 30 minutes to write out four of them. Then I had to quit and move on. I have to work at noon so there is only so much time to work on each subject. Plus, I think 30 minutes is quite long enough to spend on writing. Is it normal for a third grader (seven years old) to take that long to write out sentences? I know the going will be slower than it would be for me, but geez. At that pace it would have taken an hour to write out his whole narration.

 

Then we went on to WWE level three. Week one, day two. First dictation exercise. Not that long of a sentence but that whole thing ended up taking about 30 minutes. Some of it was daydreaming, playing with his pencil, and so on. But he was also writing so slowly. Some of that is because until now I've trained him to write neatly and carefully. Now suddenly I'm telling him to hurry up! Poor kid! I don't know what to do.

 

Am I giving him too much to write? Is it normal for a student to take this long to write out a few sentences? Does something need to go? What should I cut? Or is it reasonable to expect him to write faster? And how do I get him to start doing that without compromising neatness? Help!

[Laughing Hen]

:bigear:

[daybreaking]

My ds is a slow writer, so I can relate. Perhaps my ds is unique, but it never worked for me to try to push him to write faster. What it took was time and maturity on his part. We found much more success starting small and gradually working up. When I read your post, it seems like an awful lot of writing to me, especially with your ds being a young 3rd grader and with this being new to him. I know my ds would have been brought to tears if he were asked to write that much when he was 7. (Now that he's 9, it's no problem; he just wasn't ready back then.) In case you are interested, I just looked at SWB's handout on writing and her recommendation is 2-3 sentences a day for a 3rd grader.

[godsaggie]

My oldest (who is 5th grade this school year) takes forever! And I absolutely don't give her too much to write. Two bible verses takes her about 30 minutes. So I always save that for the end...that way she can take her time and not waste any of mine. I know that it is harder with dictation...and you probably feel like you have to repeat yourself 10 times. I started with one sentence and only repeated it twice (for a total of 3 times.) You might think about using a recorder of some type so your ds can play it back...then you can do what you need to do while he does that part. I think 10 sentences is a bit much for dictation. At his age, I would think only 2 or 3 should be enough.

I must say that my dd has gotten faster over the past year or so. I think it just takes time...at least I hope!

[MomatHWTK]

My 11 y.o. struggles to write lengthy selections. I don't think any of my kids could necessarily do a full 10 sentences in 30 minutes. I've not tried it with my 8 y.o. though- she'd have the best shot.

[Ellie]

The more he writes, the more fluent he will become.

 

You say he's a "3rd grader," but most children in 3rd grade are 8yo, not 7 (depending on when his birthday is). It is possible that you're expecting too much from a 7yo.

[HomeschoolingHearts&Minds]

You don't say how long the sentences are. One of my kids can form a sentence that's nearly a paragraph on its own. ;)

 

That is a lot of writing for a 7-year-old. What are you trying to accomplish with him writing it out? Is it for writing (letter formation) practice? Or to transition to his own written narration eventually?

 

If it's for writing practice, less is more. One or two sentences written as perfectly as possible with no errors is better than a page of hastily scribbled words.

 

If it's to transition, he may simply not be ready for that, yet, you could try transitioning him to that point as the year progresses. If he's done virtually no actually writing himself up to this point, I wouldn't expect him to suddenly be able to do large amounts of it. It is genuinely physically trying for young children to write (especially boys).

[Milknhoney]

Thanks for your feedback everyone. This helps me figure out how to reevaluate. Being too slow is one of my son's weak areas, so it is hard to know sometimes whether I am expecting too much or if he needs a push.

 

He actually does great with dictation as far as remembering what I said. And I was only giving him short snippets at a time so it was a lot easier than with WWE where he has to remember a long chunk at once. His slowness was simply the time it took to physically write it out.

 

For history my purpose is to get the transition going to write his narrations on his own. (I worry about letter formation in WWE). So if writing out 10 sentences (134 words) is too much at once... how do all of you make the transition? I don't necessarily want him to make the narrations shorter because I think it's good for him to recall as many details as possible. Do two separate narrations, one that I type and then another one for him to write?

[FairProspects]

For history my purpose is to get the transition going to write his narrations on his own. (I worry about letter formation in WWE). So if writing out 10 sentences (134 words) is too much at once... how do all of you make the transition? I don't necessarily want him to make the narrations shorter because I think it's good for him to recall as many details as possible. Do two separate narrations, one that I type and then another one for him to write?

 

I would just have him copy 1-2 of the sentences from his narration that you type or scribe for him and work up from there.

[EducationX2]

My DD is 6.5 and also a slow writer. Much of her slowness is daydreaming and purely unwillingness, but a lot is slow writing.

 

So I took out a lot of our writing. I scribe for her during many of our lessons. She starts out writing in math, and when she starts to get tired I encourage her to go a little bit longer (to increase endurance) and then take over writing the answers. Sometimes she'll work happily for another half an hour on math as long as she doesn't have to write the answers. The same goes for other subjects. When it comes to history, science, geography, etc. I encourage her to write, but don't make it mandatory (unless it is mandatory, for example part of our geography lessons are learning to draw and label maps- she needs to do the labeling herself in order to really cement it, not just point it out to me.)

 

The only subject that is mandatory right now for writing is copywork, and that is because it is the one subject that is specifically for her to better her handwriting and increase her writing endurance. I pick passages that are short, but gradually lengthening, and insist on her best handwriting. This isn't based on personal experience obviously, but I believe that with time will come the ability to write for longer periods of time and to write much quicker.

[FO4UR]

Give him less, much less. Give him what he can complete in 15min. As he gets faster, give him more...filling that 15min.

 

 

 

Forget about what which curric recommends at what grade level. Do listen to SWB's lectures.

[Laughing Hen]

I would just have him copy 1-2 of the sentences from his narration that you type or scribe for him and work up from there.

 

:iagree: I scribe my 8yo's history and science narrations, and allow her to select one sentence to copy beneath. She is also a slow, daydreaming writer who tends to need constant prodding. Sometimes from letter to letter. :001_rolleyes:

[gevs4him]

I think 10 sentences is a bit much for dictation. At his age, I would think only 2 or 3 should be enough.

I must say that my dd has gotten faster over the past year or so. I think it just takes time...at least I hope!

 

:iagree: If your child does not get faster - I would strongly suggest testing with an OT. Our ds did not improve because of dominate hand, cross over and muscle issues. After 3+ months of OT and switching to HWT he is picking up speed and getting stronger. We had never expected a problem - he did all the normal things boys do - so I am telling you this because we wrote it off as a boy thing, a left hand thing and we were so wrong :001_huh:

[lea1]

The more he writes, the more fluent he will become.

 

You say he's a "3rd grader," but most children in 3rd grade are 8yo, not 7 (depending on when his birthday is). It is possible that you're expecting too much from a 7yo.

 

Also, is he almost 8, newly turned 7 or somewhere in between? My two sons are almost 7 (9/30 & 11/11) and we are one-half way through 1st grade. If they were in public school, they would start 1st grade in the fall. It would take them quite a long time to write 10 sentences. They are doing good to write one long sentence or two short sentences for one assignment, such as writing. They might do another sentence for English later.

 

Has he built up over time to writing 10 sentences? Is that a normal amount for him to write in one sitting for one assignment?

[lea1]

:iagree: If your child does not get faster - I would strongly suggest testing with an OT. Our ds did not improve because of dominate hand, cross over and muscle issues. After 3+ months of OT and switching to HWT he is picking up speed and getting stronger. We had never expected a problem - he did all the normal things boys do - so I am telling you this because we wrote it off as a boy thing, a left hand thing and we were so wrong :001_huh:

 

What does this mean? Just curious because I have a leftie and he is a pretty slow writer and hates to write. He is only in 1st grade and will be 7 in Nov. so it may just be where is he in development and that he is a boy but I would like to know what to be looking for, just in case.

[EKS]

I'd give him one sentence per day for a while and then gradually increase it.

[justLisa]

Since mine writes with a good attitude, and it's not like he's just lolly gagging, I go with a time frame. I mean, if I want him to he will write and write, but his poor hand cannot take it. He still writes rather slow, and a few sentences is plenty. He types everything else, but we do dictation for spelling.

[gevs4him]

What does this mean? Just curious because I have a leftie and he is a pretty slow writer and hates to write. He is only in 1st grade and will be 7 in Nov. so it may just be where is he in development and that he is a boy but I would like to know what to be looking for, just in case.

 

Okay here is what happened with ds at 5 - I printed from Donna Young's site the prewriting skills, he did mazes and simple free drawings. He seemed to do a great job so after the prewriting I printed regular writing sheets well he had trouble doing them - okay to be honest I thought it was too early since he was a boy and he liked history, science experiments, hands on math and reading so I backed off the writing. We did have his eyes checked and found out he was right eye dominate, but everything else was fine no perception problems - passed all the test from the visual specialist.

 

So we waited until he was 6.5 and we bought Peterson Directed Handwriting we did K, 1, 2, but he just seemed to hate writing and it seemed so labored and took so long to write anything. I of course thought it was because I backed off and he did not get enough extra writing practice, but to be honest he was progressing so well in his other subjects I figured it was a boy thing and he would be fine. So once again I backed off.

 

Around 8 we decided to have him write more through dictation a sentence a day(this took a while , but I just figured with more practice he will get faster) and I switched him to A Reason for Writing he did the print and the transition for cursive, but he was still having problems.

 

Now we felt ds was at the point where he needed to write more with his work. So we tried dictation with 3 sentences and it was not good for him. So I read many post on the board and had his eye site retested by another vision specialist and he was fine.

 

Finally, last Aug. before he turned 9 we decided 3 months is all we will try and if he was still having so much trouble writing we would talk to the Dr. and go from there.

That being said we started IEW he could and did come up with wonderful stories, but this is the big deal it took him 2.5 hours to write 10 sentences - not playing around, not day dreaming just plain hard work and struggling.

 

Needless to say we did not wait 3 months I made an appointment and took him to the DR. which in turn sent us to the OT.

 

At OT they checked his hand dominance, checked his strength in both of his hands and pincher grip, arms, shoulders with a machine measuring thing, checked his response time when he uses his hands for small pincher grip work. They tested his visual perception, spatial awareness, visual motor integration and other things that sorry I can not remember.

 

Findings his left side hand fingers, arm and shoulder muscles are underdeveloped - his right side somewhat is, but is much stronger than his left. They rechecked to make sure he is left dominance for writing because he cuts, cuts with a knife, can write, plays ball, hockey and everything right handed, but they are 100% sure he is a lefty for writing.

 

They also checked and found a problem with him crossing over his body mid-line so this to is being addressed.

 

They also wanted to know how long did he crawl - well ds only crawled far enough to get to something he could pull himself up on and walk around this was at 7.5 months he walked by himself at 8 months. They told us this is not good for a child everychild needs to crawl to develop properly.

 

They had me switch him to Hand Writing Without Tears - which seems to be working out. We do the print 1 full boat from doorway letters, chalk board, etc. and cursive 3. This is a awesome program and I recommend it for all left handed children. And he has OT 1 hour a week and we have exercises to do daily.

 

The point I would like to make to everyone is please do not do as we did and wait until your child is 9 before you get help. Honestly we were floored that he has underdeveloped muscles - he is not a small child not over weight just large built and tall for his age. We just thought because he is big it was hard for him to hang on the bar (he could not grip it good enough - we never caught it) and for him to do a good push up - wow I could go on about all the things we missed that we never gave it a thought because he is all boy.

 

On the positive side OT has helped a great deal and we can see a great deal of improvement, he can do dictation for 2 sentences in 3 minutes. He does use a triangle grip on his pencil and also has one they made for him it blocks the movement of his thumb so that when he starts to slip his thumb forward and not use his fingers to move his pencil it corrects.

 

Sorry such a long post. Feel free to pm me if you have any other questions.