UGH! sentences.....

[bella2005]

We just started MFW Adventures, and I am reading the stories in the history books and then asking DS7 to tell me something about the story (Christopher Columbus was today) and I write the sentence or 2 he says, and have him copy it. At what point should I have him write his own sentences?

 

thanks :)

[lexi]

I have no idea but my 7 year old doesn't write her own sentences. I scribe for her. I'm hoping next year we can branch into that.

[boscopup]

When he seems ready for it? :)

 

My 3rd grader will sometimes write 1-2 sentences about a subject, but he does 3-4 sentence oral narrations. You can start having your son take his sentences from dictation. If he doesn't have any problem with that, try having him write one original sentence and see how it goes. If it's too much, go back to copywork or dictation.

[Hunter]

In the earliest grades I only use copywork for content. I don't have the student attempt to produce any original documentation of their content learning in any fashion. Even the pictures they draw are copies. I'm very Waldorfy that way. Their papers only APPEAR to show self-expression and originality.

 

We start "writing" with single sentence compositions based off of their Alpha-Phonics copywork and the grammar I am introducing.

 

I am very OCD in my teaching methods. Most of my tutoring students have a history of a lot of failure. Everything I teach is very explicit and methodical, maybe too much so.

 

I wait till students spontaneously start writing on their own in daily life, or start making "improvements" to their copywork, before I start expecting original work in writing or drawing.

[bella2005]

Thank you for the replies. He can write a short sentence from dictation, or a longer one if I repeat it for him midway. Sometimes it's hard to get him to retell the 2 sentences verbally that I scribe for him. I know he knows the story, but he's anticipating having to write the sentences so doesn't want to tell me what to write.

 

He's good with the WWE copy work now, and will occasionally write 3 or 4 short sentences about a picture (getting to that point was a bear).

 

I wouldn't be so worried, except I may have to put him in public (or at least private) school in the fall, and don't want him to be considered behind in any way. With the exception or writing sentences, I am confident he is equal to or ahead of his grade in reading, phonics/spelling, math etc. ;)

[Hunter]

 

I wouldn't be so worried, except I may have to put him in public (or at least private) school in the fall, and don't want him to be considered behind in any way. With the exception or writing sentences, I am confident he is equal to or ahead of his grade in reading, phonics/spelling, math etc. ;)

 

My youngest son was "behind" in writing in PS and at home. He was also "behind" in talking and all forms of communication. He was doing Saxon Algebra 1 at 10, and calculus at 15, but he was on his own timetable for writing. And that's just the way it was. He made the most progress in writing when I wasn't thinking about what his age peers were doing, and I was just doing what we were doing.

 

Children are not computers. Their output is not entirely dependent on what we put in. Sometimes it is not about what we are, or are not, doing.

 

:grouphug: I know it's hard when any type of evaluation is coming up.