Curriculum for reluctant writer 4th grade

[teitel]

Does anyone have a curriculum suggestion for a reluctant to write 9 year old boy? My son hates to write. It is almost like he freezes up when I have him work on making up a story. I try to give him prompts and ideas but he just won't write. I tell him that it does not matter about spelling just write the words the way he thinks they sound. (His spelling is a whole other story that we are tackling with AAS and lots of sight word spelling practice). I just want him to begin to write for enjoyment not even as school work. Anyone have any suggestions? Is there any type of free curriculum online for writing help? I have been googling but have not been able to find very much. TIA!

[thebacabunch]

I don't think creative writing in 4th grade is too important. We do wwe and then wws. My daughter loves to write and we use roris story cubes. It's a writing game and it's fun, too!

[Guest loripedford]

Have you looked at the Institute for Excellence in Writing? They have an optional seminar program to teach you how to teach Writing, in addition to the Student Curriculum. My pre-teen nephew hated writing and quickly fell in love with writing with this program. I just started it with my 3rd grader this year, and I see why. Knowing how to write creatively is a process, so it lays the ground work, so that a child will know how to write creatively.

[Ellie]

See, I don't think 9yo children need to be writing stories. Did *you* do that? I didn't. When I was 9, the most writing I did was sentences with my spelling words, although by the end of the year I had to write stories with my spelling words (which made for strange stories, lol), but that was after six months of writing sentences.

 

Learing to use more descriptive nouns and verbs, figuring out who one's audience is, writing short letters to friends--wait...that sounds like Understanding Writing. :D

 

But not stories. Not even with story-starters. I didn't do that until I was 12.

[5LittleMonkeys]

Creative writing for a non-writer is tortuous. I would fous on academic writing for him with a program that concentrates on working from models first. Before you choose a program I would recommend listening to the writing lectures by SWB. Here is the first. There's also one for idle school and one for high school. Altogether they Give a very good overview of how writing instruction can progress through all the grade levels.

 

I've had a lot of success using WWE and IEW products. Both of these programs work from models and do not require the student to come up with original content. Both focus on teaching the child to pull out important information from a source (literature or content based), organize that information, and then use that information to write a paragraph(s). WWE is excellent for teaching a student how to summarize what they've read and get those thought written down. IEW is perfect for getting a student writing quickly, and building confidence through the building of a stylistic toolbox.

[MerryAtHope]

Personally I'd wait to introduce any kind of writing curriculum until after Level 3 of AAS. He'll have mastered 1000 words by then, he'll have more stamina from doing dictation, more experience writing and editing sentences from dictation and from the Writing Station exercises that start in Level 3--he'll be more prepared for writing then.

 

If you want to do fun writing before then, I'd consider doing something simple like interactive journaling.

 

There are some great ideas in the Bravewriter Lifestyle though, and this is a free, online resource.

 

Story writing is really difficult for some kids, and they find non-fiction easier to write. You could also do things like Nature Journaling, with a combination of drawing and making notes about what you see.

 

Merry :-)

[lovemykids]

That sounds exactly like my nine year old son. He is not writing as much this year as his sisters did when they were younger. Wordsmith Apprentice is a nice intro at this age; I don’t get too many whines and whimpers with when we bring it out. It’s short and simple.

 

We may do a little IEW this year as well…

 

My son thinks Andrew is entertaining in the DVD…but we’ll see how he fares with him on a regular basis.

.

[teitel]

Thanks everyone for the advice. Maybe I didn't quite make myself as clear as I wanted too.

 

I am really not expecting him to write stories per say but to just write. Just getting him to write a sentence naming his favorite tv show or writing the name of his pet sends him into a tailspin. I guess I am not looking for a writing curriculum as much as ways to just get him comfortable writing anything. He literally freaks out when I say lets make up a sentence using that spelling word.:confused:

[boscopup]

Thanks everyone for the advice. Maybe I didn't quite make myself as clear as I wanted too.

 

I am really not expecting him to write stories per say but to just write. Just getting him to write a sentence naming his favorite tv show or writing the name of his pet sends him into a tailspin. I guess I am not looking for a writing curriculum as much as ways to just get him comfortable writing anything. He literally freaks out when I say lets make up a sentence using that spelling word.:confused:

 

My son was like that too. Exactly like that. Paralyzed with fear because he might misspell a word. We are happily using IEW now (and he can write a paragraph!!!!!), but here are the techniques that I think contributed to him breaking out of his shell:

 

1) Pudewa has kids write their rough draft in PEN and expects it to be MESSY. Final copy can be done in pencil, so erasing can take place to make it look neat.

2) Pudewa recommends the parent be a walking dictionary OR give the kid an electronic speller device. His example for this is... Say your kid wants to use the word "tyrannical" in his writing, and you say to look it up in the dictionary. Ok, so he figures out it starts with /t/ and finds the 't' section. Then it's thinking "Ter..." and looks up 'te', 'ti', 'tu'... Aw, this is too hard to find. I'll just put "bad" :tongue_smilie:.

3) Keyword outlines - 3 words per sentence or idea (they start out learning to rewrite a paragraph, sentence by sentence, then soon learn to pick out ideas in a larger passage, but each idea is still only allowed 3 keywords written down). From the keyword outline, you test the outline by saying a paragraph orally, using only that outline. If you can't figure it out from the outline, you go back and fix the outline (possibly choosing different keywords). Then once the outline "works", you can write from it (usually on a different day). One thing about he keyword outline is that the hard words to spell may be in the outline. ;) We also brainstorm for "dressups" (strong verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.), and those get written down too. All of this stuff being written down really helps him to form his own sentences without freaking out.

 

After doing IEW for the last 9 weeks, I gave my son an open-ended assignment to tell me 2-3 sentences about something he liked at Disney World (we just got back a week and a half ago). At first, he was a little freaked out, but I said, "Give me some words you might want to use that you don't know how to spell." I wrote those on the board... like "Star Tours" (what he was writing about), "Disney World", things like that. During writing, he asked me to spell a word. He figured some others out on his own (like "spy"). The only misspelled word in the whole thing was "favorite", which he spelled "favrite" - no biggie... I didn't even mention it to him. I'm sure that word will come up in our spelling at some point! He actually did very well, writing 3 sentences. I was thrilled, and he was amazed that he CAN write. :D

 

So start with baby steps, and give him some crutches to use until he's ready to start removing some of them. We had been using WWE, and copywork/dictation were somewhat helpful, but he wasn't making the leap to writing a sentence on his own. The keyword outline has greatly helped him make that leap, along with the other advice from Pudewa about spelling and such. I told my son that the rough draft will be edited, so not to worry about spelling, though he can still ask me to spell a word and I will spell it for him. I'd rather him use "tyrannical" than "bad", and I'm pretty sure "tyrannical" was not in AAS levels 1-3 (we did them). :D My son is not a bad speller. He just has words in his head that are well above what a child his age should be expected to spell, and that perfectionism kicks in, and it just paralyzes him. Once I removed that roadblock, he was able to write.

 

Does he write stories yet? Absolutely not. But I do agree with Ellie that that's more of a 12 year old thing, not a 9 year old thing. I know some kids write stories as soon as they're out of the womb, but I think most kids are not ready for real story writing until middle school.

[5LittleMonkeys]

Thanks everyone for the advice. Maybe I didn't quite make myself as clear as I wanted too.

 

I am really not expecting him to write stories per say but to just write. Just getting him to write a sentence naming his favorite tv show or writing the name of his pet sends him into a tailspin. I guess I am not looking for a writing curriculum as much as ways to just get him comfortable writing anything. He literally freaks out when I say lets make up a sentence using that spelling word.:confused:

 

I strongly recommend that you listen to the lecture I linked. In it SWB explains that it is really difficult for many children, especially boys, to come up with something to say, hold that thought in their heads long enough to get all the words onto paper, worry about letter formation, spelling, punctuation, the sentence sounding right... She compares asking a child to come up with original content,( even if you give the topic they still have to fill in all the rest ) to asking a child that can follow sheet music to suddenly come up with their own musical composition. He knows how to form letters, knows what words are, even knows how to string them together verbally...but writing isn't a natural behavior the way talking is. It has to be taught and modeled little by little.

 

If he has trouble with the physical act of writing you need to scribe for him until he is able to easily write for himself, or teach him to type. Learning to write well is a mental skill, not a physical one.

 

I still recommend WWE (if you need to go back to copywork and summaries) or IEW.

Edited September 20, 2012 by 5LittleMonkeys

[thegeyser]

I have reluctant writer too. We recently switched from WWE to Classical Writing - Aesop. We don't have nearly as many tears, but he really likes fables. If he starts to have trouble, we work on an outline together. I also like that editing is part of the process. We also type the final, so he is only hand writing the rough draft. Hope that helps!

[Ellie]

Thanks everyone for the advice. Maybe I didn't quite make myself as clear as I wanted too.

 

I am really not expecting him to write stories per se but to just write. Just getting him to write a sentence naming his favorite tv show or writing the name of his pet sends him into a tailspin. I guess I am not looking for a writing curriculum as much as ways to just get him comfortable writing anything. He literally freaks out when I say lets make up a sentence using that spelling word.:confused:

Maybe copywork would be better for him at this point, something like these from Queen Homschool Supply.

[Clear Creek]

Thanks everyone for the advice. Maybe I didn't quite make myself as clear as I wanted too.

 

I am really not expecting him to write stories per say but to just write. Just getting him to write a sentence naming his favorite tv show or writing the name of his pet sends him into a tailspin. I guess I am not looking for a writing curriculum as much as ways to just get him comfortable writing anything. He literally freaks out when I say lets make up a sentence using that spelling word.:confused:

I would recommend Wordsmith Apprentice. It was great for my oldest, who was quite a bit like you describe. She is not the type to write for fun (she prefers drawing), and she was so sure that anything that she wrote was going to be wrong that she wouldn't write anything at all. Wordsmith Apprentice addresses that and lets the student know that the rough draft is an important step before anything is sent to the editor (the student is pretending to be a reporter at a newspaper). Plus, the way it is designed, there are specific things that are asked for in the assignment, and that is what is up for critique, not every single little thing. I very rarely make my daughter do a second draft of anything; I just make sure she followed the directions and we discuss anything specific to the assignment that she may not have done correctly.

 

It is not the end-all be-all for writing reports and such, but it is an *excellent* introduction to writing for children that are not willing or confident.

[teitel]

Thanks again for more advice. Today was a good day with his writing. We did mixed up sentences. He liked putting the sentences in order and then copying them. We also did sentences that were missing either a subject or verb and he had to come up with his own to fill in the blank. Then he would copy those. Not nearly as stressful and he actually said they were fun. Maybe I am on to something for now.

 

I have bookmarked all the links that everyone suggested for later reading.

[boscopup]

Thanks again for more advice. Today was a good day with his writing. We did mixed up sentences. He liked putting the sentences in order and then copying them. We also did sentences that were missing either a subject or verb and he had to come up with his own to fill in the blank. Then he would copy those. Not nearly as stressful and he actually said they were fun. Maybe I am on to something for now.

 

I have bookmarked all the links that everyone suggested for later reading.

 

Toward the end of last year, I realized that my son would mentally check out during copywork, but if I had him DO something with the sentence, he enjoyed it more. I used R&S grammar exercises to get him physically writing more, and that helped a lot. From there, we started the keyword outline stuff as I mentioned earlier.

[dbmamaz]

You might want to check out Bravewriter. she has some free podcasts which give you an idea of the way she approaches writing. The Writers Jungle isnt a curriculum, per se, but an approach for how to coach your child to love writing and find their own voice. i got the PDF and read it on my ipad . . .i'm not done yet, but its really helped me approach writing with a positive attitude and in a way that helps him like it

[KAM]

I also have a 9 y.o. reluctant writer. He has been doing great this year with Writing Strands 3.

[Plateau Mama]

Thanks everyone for the advice. Maybe I didn't quite make myself as clear as I wanted too.

 

I am really not expecting him to write stories per say but to just write. Just getting him to write a sentence naming his favorite tv show or writing the name of his pet sends him into a tailspin. I guess I am not looking for a writing curriculum as much as ways to just get him comfortable writing anything. He literally freaks out when I say lets make up a sentence using that spelling word.:confused:

 

Last year my son was 9/4th grade. If I asked him to write anything, even a sentence, we had tears and he would absolutly freak out.

 

We did IEW last year. I didn't buy all the DVDs etc. We did it thru our homeschool group,Classical Conversations. I just picked up the student manual and teacher manual for American history. He did fabulous! When we were done with the book he was dissapointed writing was done with for the school year! (I didn't use the Teacher book BTW, but if you aren't doing it thru a class you might need it.)

 

Today we did the second lesson (Ancient History). The same type assignment that took him 3+ hours last year (over 3 days), took him 20 minutes today! The best part, HE HAD FUN! And he was so proud of himself for doing, basically, by himself.