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How can I get my dd more interested in LA?


jentwo
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My dd is six and loves math and history and is "in" second grade for all subjects but language centered materials. She greatly dislikes reading, writing and isn't thrilled with grammar though it's easier for her than reading and writing. Phonics is a cinch for her and she's known her phonics work for some time but when it comes to actually putting it into action she balks and doesn't want to read anything but the simplest of material. We've tried several curricula and haven't found anything she truly loves in those areas. I'm considering Explode the Code and Growing with Grammar for this year. I'd love suggestions for a fun curriculum that would interest her.

 

She's a lefty and I think it is frustrating for her to do writing because she wants to write things her way. Any suggestions for how to help a lefty write easily?

 

TIA!

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Personally, I wouldn't use a curriculum for grammar with a child that age, even if they are doing 2nd grade work.

I would watch some School House Rock grammar songs and casually introduce things into your day being as natural with it as possible based off the songs. Also there are some fun picture books out there that would cover parts of speech in a fun way. Play rhyming games, point out when a word is spelled the same but can mean different things, etc. There are also some of those word magnets that are color coded according to parts of speech (something like this http://www.kidtronic.com/mywordmagnets/shop/product.php?productid=5&categoryid=2&page=0) that your child can make sentences from. She will learn sooo much from all these activities that when you do start a curriculum down the road she will be familiar with the concepts and it will seem easy for her. Make it fun at this point and don't worry over it.

As far as reading goes, let her read easy stuff. That is great practice! Let her read the same book over and over if she wants. She is young. It will all come together, I promise! If you push too much, though, she may shut down and you really won't get anywhere for a while (ask me how I know ;)).

I guess my advice is to just relax a bit. It really will all work out. :)

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Is it important for a child to be "interested" in reading, writing, and grammar? Or are you just wanting her not to complain about it? :-)

 

If she's just 6, it could be that she just is not ready for grammar (I don't teach grammar to dc that young; I don't see the point). Her fine motor skills are just developing, which would be why the physical act of writing is problematic and not enjoyable for her.

 

Also, that you've already tried several products with her causes to wonder if there's some confusion and that's why she balks.

 

You might consider doing something like Spalding (Writing Road to Reading is the manual), or SWR, where everything is taught together; dc learn to read by learning to spell, penmanship is an integral part of the instruction (and it is the same for lefties and righties, the only difference being in the direction the dc's paper is slanted), punctuation /puncutation and writing are taught all at the same time. With Spalding's teacher guides, it can be your whole English course.

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it sounds like your dd is right where she is supposed to be for a 6 yo. Writing at this age can just be copywork. It takes so much for a little one to write their own material. The average 6 yo just really isn't there yet. It is my belief that it is better for them to copy material that is correct than to be trying to write their own sentences. Even though she knows her phonics, you may want to continue with it a while longer. it really isn't bad for kids to have some stuff that is easy for them. It is a confidence builder. Plus, it has been my experience that little ones sometimes lose skills that I took for granted that they had. (A year to them is the equivalent of ten to me.) For grammar, I would suggest something like First Language Lessons by Peacehill Press. It does an excellent job of teaching grammar skills in a very age appropriate manner that I believe your dd may enjoy. The writing in it is copywork. Grammar instruction really isn't needed at this young age.

 

As far as the handwriting goes, I don't have a lefty; but I do have a child who has difficulty with handwriting. She is a righty who holds her pencil like a lefty only a bit more oddly. (How is that for a convoluted sentence?) I tried forever to make her do it "right". She finally did. Now, she does it her own way anyway. At 6, it is very normal to be having difficulty with writing. My advice for handwriting is just to have her practice. Copywork is best for this because it allows her to focus on the task at hand without worrying about so many other things that go into the writing process.

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I agree with Deece. I wouldn't use a grammar program with a child that young.

 

I blogged about my system of writing with my dc when they are younger if you care to read it, it's entitiled "My thoughts on Teaching Writing" and then I've listed some online resources that I use. It works for us! Maybe it could work for your dd, too.

 

The link is under Four Winds Academy in my signature line!

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My dd is six and loves math and history and is "in" second grade for all subjects but language centered materials. She greatly dislikes reading

 

What is she reading that she doesn't like? Since she loves history and math, maybe books that involve some type of mystery to solve or historical books are the key to unlocking this. There are many staged readers that she could read. A few to mention off the top of my head are the Magic Tree House books, which may not be the optimal literature selection they are much better than Junie B. Jones. They provide the mystery and history elements.

 

What about math driven children's literature?

http://www.geocities.com/heartland/estates/4967/math.html

http://www.mathsolutions.com/index.cfm?page=wp15&crid=50

(pdf file, linked below, that lists children's math literature complete with what concepts and ages that they would be appropriate for, I love this and use it often)

http://www.mathsolutions.com/documents/lessons_chart-2.pdf

 

I also get the ETA and other school type catalogs to pull titles (to get from the library) from groupings of books, here's an example:

http://www.etacuisenaire.com/catalog/department?deptId=MATHLITERATURE&d0=MATH&d1=MATHLITERATURE

 

Explode the Code has been great for us and will reinforce her phonics learning. You don't *need* to do grammar but something to learn the mechanics of formulating sentences and punctuation would be good. I would look for something that does not require 100% writing, maybe something that has flashcards and songs would be more beneficial to her at this time.

 

She's a lefty and I think it is frustrating for her to do writing because she wants to write things her way. Any suggestions for how to help a lefty write easily?

 

TIA!

 

Is there really a problem with her writing her way if it's neat and readable? I'm a lefty and I struggled too with handwriting only because I was taught a certain way and I naturally wanted to write another way. It was uncomfortable for me to write the way I was being taught but I did it. Only until I adopted my own style did I not mind writing.

 

Now I write as a right-handed lefty, my letters slant to the left and I write in a cursive/print style which is very comfortable and most of the time...readable. :)

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I would suggest to forget grammar for a while, and focus on getting the reading off the ground + penmanship (is this what you mean by writing ?). If you meant writing = composition, for a child that age, narration would be more suitable. My son is at the same age as your daughter, and is learning to narrate (not good yet, though). Later, when he's at the third or fourth grade, I'm going to transition him into written narration.

 

Now, on to reading. You said that your daughter has the phonics pinned down. So, what exactly is the problem ? The interest factor or the fact that it's hard for her to decode ?

 

If interest is the problem, then get her an interesting reading material. You can refer to websites with leveled reading, but personally my criteria in selecting reading material for my son (6 yo, just finished Reading MAde Easy on May 2008) is:

- interesting stories.

- the kind of words contained in the reading material (has to be mostly one syllable words or easy two-syllable words, like: little, mother, and everything with -y, -ing, -ed, -er and -est).

- sentence coherency. This makes reading easier, because then your daughter doesn't need to decode every single word. She can sort of guess some.

I do not really like leveled reading sugggestion, because it tends to emphasize on the length of the book. That is, if the book contains only one sentence per page, and is short enough, no matter how advance the words are, then it is for the beginner. IN my experience, it's sometimes more difficult for beginner to decipher this kind of reading material. In contrast, when I give my son with books selected according to my criteria, then he reads more fluently and with interest.

 

At the very beginning, I use Elson RUnkel Primer and Treadwell Primer after I finish with the phonics instruction (Reading Made Easy), all available free from google books and Baldwin project, respectively. The words are easy enough,the sentences are coherent, and the stories are interesting.

 

Before reading, I introduced him to the story and new vocab (with phonics approach). If you used Elson Runkel then you can use its suggestion (there's teacher manual at the back of the book), but I made up my own phonics-based vocab lesson for first several lessons, based on my son's capability. After several lesson, as he was gaining confidence, I just introduced him to the story via pictures, but there's no need to introduce new words. Now, I just asked him to look at the picture, and we had a little discussion about what the story is about, then asked him to just read it.

 

This really transition him gently enough to other beginner books, like Green Eggs and Ham and other Dr. Seuss books, and I can Read level 1 series (we did my first I can read -- you know, biscuit series, but it's more enjoyable and easier for my son to read level 1, which is supposedly more difficult than Biscuit). This puts my son in around beginning second grade level.

 

You could also try Frances, or Curious George stories. Frances is especially easy. The sentences are coherent and the stories are interesting. It's long, yes. But it's easy.

 

For first grade, I would like my son to continue with the FREE/public domain graded reader (classic reader) during school read aloud time (I just don't have time to plan reading lesson around library material): Elson Runkel first reader, Treadwell first reader, Summer first reader, Beacon introductory second reade (animal tales)r, Smythe Primary Reader and Horace introductroy second reader. On Sat and Sun, he can read I can Read series or other readers from the library.

 

Oh as for grammar, if your daughter read a lot, she will absorb grammar. If you feel the need, then you can start grammar later when her reading is taking off.

 

Hope this helps.

Dian

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For writing/penmanship (if you meant writing = penmanship), I suggest Handwriting Without Tears. IT has suggestion on teaching writing for lefties in the teacher manual.

 

THis is the penmanship program which does magic in my son's capability to write and draw. You start off with putting the wooden letter pieces to form a letter correctly, then you use little blackboard with chalk, or stamp wooden letter pieces into a doodle pad. Only after this, a child is expected to write something on paper. My son (at that time 6 years 3 months) even after those exercise couldn't write using pencil. So I gave him the pre-K books where he could write using a crayon. After finishing the pre-K book, he moved onto the K book where he wrote using a pencil. Now, 4.5 months after we started the writing journey, he's doing the first grade HWT book and draws a lot. He can also do some math workbook, now that he's writing.

 

We plan to finish off the first grade HWT book in two weeks or so. For first grade, my son will not get any more handwriting curriculum. I just want him to opractice writing via copywork and workbook (planning ETC and a little bit of math worksheet).

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Is there really a problem with her writing her way if it's neat and readable? I'm a lefty and I struggled too with handwriting only because I was taught a certain way and I naturally wanted to write another way. It was uncomfortable for me to write the way I was being taught but I did it. Only until I adopted my own style did I not mind writing.

 

Now I write as a right-handed lefty, my letters slant to the left and I write in a cursive/print style which is very comfortable and most of the time...readable. :)

 

If it were readable I would be thrilled. At this point neat isn't an issue because the readable part would be an improvement! :lol: Her penmanship is awful! Any letter or numeral that is circular in form she writes as curlicues. I've often wondered if there's some other (more comfortable) way she can write because she's a lefty.

 

She wants to write, wants to read, etc. but when it comes to actually sitting down to do it she wants it over quickly. I've been trying not to push her and will instead suggest she help her younger brother with phonics and sounding out words. She enjoys that immensely. I guess what seems odd is that she had started reading on her own nearly two years ago and now dislikes it.

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Has anyone suggested going to a developmental optometrist and getting a vision evaluation (different from an eye exam). My ds never liked to read but did learn phonics at an early age and could read if asked. He never had any other symptoms of a child needing vision therapy - but he did. We are nearly finished and his reading and handwriting has improved.

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