2nd grade writing questions...

[Gentlemommy]

How much time does your second grader spend actually writing? As in, copywork, or handwriting sheets, not dictating to you or typing. How many words per day do they write? I'm not sure if I'm expecting too much or too little from dd. she's had trouble with reading and writing is hard too-she dreads it. Typically, she writes 8-10 words for spelling/ETC and 1-2 sentences (about 6 words each) for either history/grammar/lap book per day. So, on average she is writing about 20 words. I do NoT thing that is enough at ALL. However, it is so painful for her, im not sure what to do??? I expect perfect formation of the letters and will have her redo them if not, so what she does write is fairly neat...She writes a little on her own, but only a few words at a time. I keep telling her at school she'd be writing a LOT more. ;)

[Soror]

Mine is an older 2nd, due to his b-day and cut-off. He struggles with writing as well, although this year has been much better. He does WWE2 and Draw Write Now on days (with copywork if there is a day without any writing in WWE- which seems to be about 1x a week). WWE seems to have about 1-2 sentences daily around 9-11 words or so in length. He does about 5 sentences of dictation for spelling, these are fairly short though 5-8 words though.

[Down_the_Rabbit_Hole]

Hate to say it but it depends on the individual child. My 2nd grade girl writes far more at this age then any of my boys ever did. So far today she has:

-written 5 sentences with adverbs. These sentences range from 8 words to 11 words.

-answer 12 math problems all with the answer in the thousands

-wrote a short Bible verse

She still has to...

-write a 2 sentence narration for science

-label a map for geography

-copy her spelling list in script, 15 word

 

This does not include drawing or coloring work she needs to do for some subjects.

Over all this an average days worth of scheduled writing. Dd usually has some writing project she works on on her own time.

[SilverMoon]

I won't compare my current second grader to a struggling one, but I have taught second grade to a DC like you described.

 

Start where you are, wherever that may be, and move forward steadily. Keep giving her as strong an assignment as she can do well, and gently stretch her by increasing the assignments as her skill and endurance grows. Write something daily.

 

My once struggling to write a few words second grader is now a seventh grader who writes paragraphs at a time with ease. :001_smile:

[Down_the_Rabbit_Hole]

One think to think about is for some children it is actually painful to write a whole lot due to them not having the fine motor muscles developed enough.

cutting

play dough

writing large with chalk or white board

write tiny

lacing

hanging baby doll cloths with clothes pins

These activities plus more will help strengthen her hand muscles.

[Bree]

My second grader has always struggled more with writing. He probably does about 2-4 sentences a day plus math. I use to push him more with writing, but lately I have let him stick around 4 at the tops and it has been easier on us. He actually will spend time writing and drawing on his own now that I don't push him too much. One thing I found that works better for him is to break up the writing assignments because it just hurts him to write too much :(

My kindergarten dd on the other hand loves to write and probably does better than my ds. I have noticed an improvement in his writing the last couple of months so maybe with a little time it will get better :)

[justLisa]

That sounds ok. I suspect DD will be able to write more in 2nd (she is 6) than ds did. He wrote about as much as you describe, with the addition of one page in HWOT a day.

[*Jen*]

My son does not like to write at all.

 

Yesterday his writing was the following (which was a lot for him)

 

- 25 math problems with 3 digit answers

- wrote 15 review spelling words and two dictation sentences of about 5-7 words each.

- copied one sentence in WWE

- copied 3 sentences of about 4 words each for Growing with Grammar and wrote about 6 other words.

 

Today he wrote a 4 sentence letter (long sentences) to his grandmother which took over an hour and will do about 25 math problems. The rest of his work today I will probably write for him because I was happy that he wrote to his grandmother without complaint and actually enjoyed it.

[lindsrae]

My DD is 7. We do one sentence a day of copywork. 3-5 spelling words. Math. We do grammar and other dictations orally.

 

She will color all day long, so for her, it is the actual process of forming the letters that is a struggle.

[ByGrace3]

Today was more than normal.

 

8 spelling words (about 3 of them she wrote 2 additional times)

12 dictation sentences (6-8 words each) we would usually do half that twice a week, but we did the weeks worth of spelling dictation today.)

WWE dictation

2 math pages

3 pages of ETC

1 page of cursive

 

I guess the only thing unusual about today was the amount of spelling. WWE either has dictation or copy work 3 days a week. I still write science and history narrations for her.

 

BUT she is not a struggling writer. This is the child that handwriting is her favorite part of the day. :tongue_smilie: I am pretty confident ds would not be able to write anywhere near this much when he is 7. I am a big fan of progression. Be working towards where you want to be steadily.

[MinivanMom]

I have a young 2nd grade boy. On an average day he writes:

 

-2-4 sentences in his journal

-1-2 pages of cursive in HWT

-6-10 sentences of actual writing (stories or reports)

-10-ish sentences of French copywork or translations

 

He was one who hated writing and struggled with letter formation. I *gently* continued to push him a little bit each day. Sometimes there were tears, but I continued to push. He has made huge improvements in the past 6 months and he is very proud of learning cursive. I would never have believed it six months ago, but cursive practice is the favorite part of his day.

[Mandylubug]

My twin girlies are slow with reading and writing. It has been a slow go but we are making progress.

 

Their day's writing content looks like this:

 

2-4 pages of ETC (depends on their mood)

2 pages of HWOT (doesn't have THAT much on it, ykwim?)

2 pages of math by R&S which is a larger font

One sentence or Art page in their daily Journal with date written.

[ALB]

My dd is a young 2nd grader. Today she did:

 

1 page cursive

15 spelling words

5 Latin vocabulary words + definitions

2 pages of math

3 sentence narration in science

1 sentence dictation

4 short sentences for grammar

 

(probably not helpful to anyone, but it was helpful to me to see it typed out :lol:)

[morosophe]

My son was like this in first and second. He just hated writing, although he enjoyed artwork.

 

Last summer, though, a switch got flipped somewhere; he started writing whole stories on his own, and now has absolutely no problem with writing, to the point where he'd rather write than narrate some things. (Or, well, he seems eager to do the written exercises for his grammar classes, at least.)

 

So it might just be one of those developmental milestones. Encourage your daughter to write every day, but don't worry too much, is what my (extremely limited) experience seems to teach me.