My 4th grader and her writing.....ugh. Sample inside.

[ChristusG]

I don't think my 4th grader is up to par with her writing. I'm pretty sure she should be capable of better paragraphs than this. Most of the time she doesn't capitalize sentences or include punctuation. She doesn't use "super sentences" like we've discussed. She just puts something on paper to be finished with her assignment. Here's her paragraph from today:

 

 

I'm getting a new dog. his name is Pan. I would walk him and play with him. I hope he would watch TV with me. I would care for him give him food and watch him. I cant wait to get him tomorrow.

 

 

And this is AFTER I totally disregarded her first paper today that made absolutely no sense. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Doesn't this seem below a fourth grade level? Yeah, I know, all kids work at their own level, but I don't want her totally behind.

 

Good writing programs? Anyone use Writing Strands? Brave writer? Others?

[BatmansWife]

It actually seems completely normal to me, :lol: .  My 4th grader usually forgets to capitalize and punctuate (I repeat over and over, "Remember how you start and end a sentence").  I'm actually impressed your dd capitalized Pan and TV....way to go!  :001_smile:   Here's a sample of what my dd just wrote yesterday (for this to make sense, here's what she had to write about: "Imagine yourself starting out on the voyage with Columbus.  How do you think you would have felt?  Many times the sailors wanted to return to Spain.  Why do you think they were afraid to continue on the journey?  How would you have felt, if you had been with Columbus when he discovered the new land?"):

 

Scared of getting ShiPwrecked.  And in the middle of noware.  exited of discovering a place ware no one found befor.

 

What's amazing to me is the she spelled scared, middle, discovering, place, one, and found correctly...but can't spell where.  Anyway, I'm :bigear: , but I think you got nothin' to worry about.  :001_smile:

 

 

 

 

[Arcadia]

What my kids's teacher ask me to do for all the sentences starting with "I" or the same word that they write is to circle them and get my kids to rewrite.
For punctuation, my boys have to proofread before giving them to me or their teacher. If there are punctuation and/or spelling errors, it is return to them for redoing their proofreading.

[Tanikit]

I think you need to teach your child about writing a paragraph. While her sentences are all complete sentences even if they are not super sentences she needs to be taught that we cannot start every sentence with the same word. She could practice writing sentences starting in different ways. Are you still reading plenty aloud to her - discuss how the authors start their sentences with different words each time - you can also teach time, place, subject (she should have done this when working on super sentences) and that a sentence can start with any of these - you could get her to write out a single sentence multiple times starting with a different part of it each time and see if the meaning changes or if it sounds better.

 

Your child could also do well with learning to make compound sentences - she needs to learn about conjunctions and how they can be used even if for a start she uses just because or and to join sentences and gradually moves to better words for this.

 

Punctuation - certainly capitals and periods should be expected at this age and I would send her back to fix it every single time she handed in something that had an error with these basics - and I would make her write the entire thing out again if necessary if I thought she had been lazy (aren't I mean) - but sometimes they need to know what is acceptable and what is not at their age and need to be made to do it right - those are first grade basics and should be expected of her. Other things I would be less strict on though.

 

The other thing you can do if you do not feel it is up to standard and it is not from a teaching problem (if you think she just wants to be done) is to tell her she must add at least two extra details in after you have read it initially. Then if she writes more and better (even ever so slightly) then you do not ask for the extra details the next time, let her settle into that quantity and quality and then again up the standard and tell her you want more.

 

You can also try getting her to tell you what she would like to write about as you may get better writing if she is actually interested in the topic and then you can work on the mechanics more easily.

[shinyhappypeople]

I don't think my 4th grader is up to par with her writing. I'm pretty sure she should be capable of better paragraphs than this. Most of the time she doesn't capitalize sentences or include punctuation. She doesn't use "super sentences" like we've discussed. She just puts something on paper to be finished with her assignment. Here's her paragraph from today:

 

 

I'm getting a new dog. his name is Pan. I would walk him and play with him. I hope he would watch TV with me. I would care for him give him food and watch him. I cant wait to get him tomorrow.

 

 

And this is AFTER I totally disregarded her first paper today that made absolutely no sense. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Doesn't this seem below a fourth grade level? Yeah, I know, all kids work at their own level, but I don't want her totally behind.

 

Good writing programs? Anyone use Writing Strands? Brave writer? Others?

I have no idea if it's normal or not. I have two completely different kids: one weeps at the sight of a pencil and the other wrote a thousand-word story in two days.

 

As far as writing programs go, I am LOVING Write On by Karen Newell. You can get it for less than $20 at Amazon. She gives a good explanation of how to model and guide kids through each new wrting task. Plus, it's open and go.

[edeemarie]

IEW has been wonderful for my 4th grader. We are using All Things Fun & Fascinating (and just for the record, I have never watched the TWSS and we are doing just fine :-)). The thing I love most about it is that I work with him while he writes to teach him how to write. I think that has made the biggest difference in his writing.

[umsami]

DS1 is using BraveWriter.  Right now, we're doing partnership writing.  Sometimes I just have him dictate to me and I write.  Other times, we write together.  It seems to help.  We started the actual assignment partnership writing this month.  You can download a sample at her website.  

 

Honestly, I don't think it's horrible.  First off, find things to praise about it, so she doesn't get discouraged.  Then correct the punctuation (perhaps together?) and have her rewrite.  You could also ask some more leading questions to help her develop it a bit more.

 

It's a process. Encourage her, help her, and she'll get better.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that my son has many many years to master XYZ (whatever he's having trouble with).  If he doesn't get it today, it really isn't the end of the world. (Although sometimes I feel like it is.)

[ChristusG]

I'm glad to hear that she's somewhat normal in this area then. I never know where she "should" be since she's my oldest. I just know that I love to write, have always been good at it, and it's hard to see sentences with no detail LOL. We do proofread and correct each time. And I go over what could have been added to make it more exciting. She just wants to be finished with it though. Hopefully it will all come together in time. I'll be checking out some of the curriculum mentioned! Thanks!

[Soror]

I am so not a writing expert but I do writing with ds to work on these things. I need to read more about the partnership writing as it sounds interesting and like what we are striving for here. When he does his work I keep a dialogue going with him.  How else could we start that sentence so it sounds different than the others and more interesting? Can you make the subject different (we started this w/ CAP WR and it has been very helpful)? Let's look that word up in the thesaurus and see what else we can find. What are we trying to convey? Is your sentence conveying that thought?  What is the main point? My son usually remembers proper punctuation but not always, even though it annoys him when I remind him, because of course he knows. WR has given me a lot of jumping off points to start talking to him about these things. Ds finds this process enjoyable actually, even though he's never liked writing, working on these skills and discussing them is fun for him (and me). He gets excited figuring out how he can make his writing better as his thoughts are much more sophisticated than his writing.

[petepie2]

It's possible for them to know the capitalization and punctuation rules but still not be automatic in applying them. My DS7 is like that. I just had him start Evan Moor's Daily Paragraph Editing to give him another way of paying attention to grammar. He had no clue when we first started it, but now, just into week 2, he's been able to find most errors on his own. It's just another way of hammering it in, I guess, and I think it will produce some positive results. 

[lmrich]

Could you write a sample paragraph for her to read so she has an idea of what a good paragraph looks like?

[pollo_la]

Writing and reading skills go hand in hand. How long has she been a fluent reader? What kinds of books does she read? How much does she read each day? The more she reads good quality literature, the more her writing will improve without the use of any particular curriculum. Honestly, her writing seems absolutely fine for a 4th grader. Sure, there are kids that can write better, but I'm also sure there are plenty who are not to that level yet. I'd say just make sure she gets in quality reading time each day, and have her do copywork too in addition to free writing. In fact, maybe switch to all copywork for a couple months. The more she sees what good sentences are suppose to look like, the more likely she is to use those skills in her own writing. My dd was reading fluently at 4 (books like the boxcar children) and she read for hours from good quality books each day, but it wasn't until she turned 9 that she started writing. Before that, if I did ask her to write something on her own (which I usually didn't.... usually just stuck to a few sentences of copywork) it was similar to what your dd wrote.

[hollyhock]

Is she writing by hand, or typing?  If by hand, have you tried giving her a similar assignment and having her type it?  That was a major eye-opener for me with my then-9-yr-old daughter.  She was a far, far more capable writer when typing than writing by hand, even though her typing was very slow.  In my dd's case, her spelling and handwriting were limiting her to very simple sentences (dyslexic, dysgraphic).  Those barriers dissolved on the computer.

 

This happened with my son when he was 10. It made a world of difference to have him type his writing assignments rather than write them with a pencil. Until he typed, he too was just trying to get them over with.

[stripe]

 While her sentences are all complete sentences even if they are not super sentences she needs to be taught that we cannot start every sentence with the same word.

While I found your advice very helpful, I just wanted to point out about this particular thing that starting nearly every sentence with "I" is going to be a frequent downfall of a paragraph that is centered on oneself: her life, what is happening, and her dreams. I think it would be challenging to make those types of thoughts into not-starting-with-I sentences.

[Farrar]

My fourth graders have similar writing.  When they're focusing, they remember those capitals and punctuation most of the time, but when they're really thinking about the writing, they don't.  Which makes sense.  Walking and chewing gum at the same time.  So we do some assignments (like dictation and some narrations) that are focused more on remembering that stuff and others (first drafts, freewriting, etc.) that are not and I don't penalize for it.  They waffle between writing that is pretty simple (not unlike what you posted here) and writing that has a bit more depth and voice.  I never know what I'm going to get, honestly.  Sometimes they give me these lovely phrases and other times I'm internally screaming to myself, "How can you not see how weirdly awkward that sentence is!"  I think it's the age.

 

We use Brave Writer and really love it.

 

The Brave Writer approach would be to focus on the parts of the writing that are working and bring out her voice and build on that.  So in that writing, instead of focusing on the idea that the sentences aren't "super," you would focus on the fact that they show excitement.  That they make sense and give a structure to build on.  You would probably ask her to "say more."  In BW speak, this is the "partnership writing" stage.  So in our house, this often looks like the kids writing something on their own, and then bringing it to me, and then I help them add to it.  I might ask them to focus on stronger words and we'd change out a bunch of the words for better ones.  Or I might focus on the sentence structure and we'd find a way to say the sentences not starting with "I" all the time.  Or I might just ask for details.  And ask questions like what shows will you watch?  What will the dog feel like?  What does he look like?  How did you choose that name?  And so forth.  She recommends doing only one revision thing at a time.  But sometimes we do a couple of passes.  Or sometimes the kids write something and I say, "cute story, I liked this and this and that and this word here and thanks!" and we let it go.  Process, not product.

 

With BW, you also look at models from books, through copywork or dictation maybe, but you're not imitating them per se, you're just constantly trying to help them absorb the vocabulary and complexity of that quality writing.  And you'd work on the punctuation aspect more through exercises with dictation or things like that (I have my kids dictate to me and correct my work, for example) than through their own writing, though you would do some.  So you're building her writing voice, but not by telling her what to do straight on - "copy this structure in your paragraph" or "follow these rules" - but sort of indirectly, while looking for the bright spots in the writing she does herself and trying to keep her uninhibited about writing so she'll stay open to developing her own voice.

 

It's not for everyone.  I think there are some kids who need a lot more direct hand holding and "rules" to follow in order to become good writers.  BW is sort of like, discover the concepts on your own, then practice the math.  Whereas a program like IEW is more like practice the algorithms and that will help you understand the concepts.  But I think everyone can take a little something from BW. ;)

 

If you're interested, Partnership Writing is the set of writing projects for 3-5th graders.  The opening half has an pared down (and more user friendly) explanation of how to use the BW lifestyle for this specific writing stage as well as suggested schedules.  It's a lot more affordable and user friendly than The Writer's Jungle, though TWJ has so, so, so much more information, but I've taken to recommending that if anyone is interested with a kid the right age, that they try PW first.

[Paige]

My 4th graders would write something similar. Their older brother was far better at that age, but everyone is different. I'll admit, it stresses me out too. I think my DDs primary issue is perfectionism and fear. They write simply, because they think they will make fewer mistakes. You might want to try having her dictate a paragraph to you and then copy it into their own handwriting. I sometimes do that with mine and their paragraphs are always much more complex and use better vocabulary.

 

ETA- They have been taught all about paragraphs, main ideas, supporting statements, etc. They've been taught to use conjunctions, how to punctuate, and everything else they need. I could explain and have them practice until next year, but it won't make them DO it. They'd rather cry because it is a matter of their anxiety about writing rather than one of ignorance.

[Tanikit]

While I found your advice very helpful, I just wanted to point out about this particular thing that starting nearly every sentence with "I" is going to be a frequent downfall of a paragraph that is centered on oneself: her life, what is happening, and her dreams. I think it would be challenging to make those types of thoughts into not-starting-with-I sentences.

 

This is true - which is why it needs to be taught. I wouldn't expect a 4th grader to write without repeating things or starting sentences with the same word - I just see what they are producing as a way to see what needs to be taught next.  Our job is to be the teacher - so we look at what they are doing, do not care less about what level it is at and say: where to from here? Maybe that was less clear in my post.

 

So what needs to be done is to teach the child how to change all those I's to something else - could you start with "My dream...." rather than "I dream"? "I would like to play music - could easily be changed to begin with music - teach them to switch subject and object. Teach them to compare even in a personal essay - that way you can write about how what you do/think is similar to what someone else is doing/thinking which also makes it easier not to use I. This is all about teaching - not about what a child should know automatically - some of them will, but many will not - and this is the same when teaching other subjects too.

 

Is it easy? No - which is why they have many years to learn it. But if you just say: This is a 4th graders writing and it is fine and up to level then will you just waste a year and decide to teach what can be taught now next year instead? 

 

I did agree though that praise should be given if it is deserved - pointing out what is good - and forgot to mention that and sometimes a piece should just be left as is, but then the child should know that this does not mean the piece is perfect, just that it is acceptable and sometimes good enough really is ok - other times it needs more work. This is a balancing act and you need to know your child well.

[Pen]

My son has done best so far with Brave Writer type methods. 

 

I thought IEW might be excellent for him, and he did do two very good paragraphs with it--before it led to tears. He considers All Things Fun and Fascinating to be All Things Dull and Boring. And Writing Strands was a total bust here.

 

I think IEW will work best for the sort of student who has nothing they want to write about and works well from an outline.

 

BW works better for the sort of student who does better developing an idea from a beginning into more, working ideas out on paper.

 

With BW and what you have above, you could first try to generate more raw material to work with. There is obviously a lot of excitement. And once the dog comes there would be even more to say, no doubt. So, I'd try to get more out on paper that then could be revised and worked with. You can scribe for your dd if that would help at this stage, perhaps interviewing her about the dog.  "So, can you tell our interested readers, how did Pan get her name?" "What sort of dog is Pan?" "Whose idea was it to get a dog?" "Have you been waiting a long time for her?"  "Have you ever had another dog?" "What was Pan's arrival home like?" and so on, might be useful questions to elicit interesting information for a short piece about Pan.

 

Ruth Culham's Traits of Writing has also been helpful.

[sbgrace]

My boys are 4th grade, too, so I don't have a voice of experience here. But I can tell you what I'm doing. I'm writing with them. Sometimes they write, and we revise together afterward. I point out things done well that I want to see more of: "That's a really strong verb! I like it." I focus on something to rework. "You remember how we talked about varied sentence beginnings? Let's try to reword so we get some variety." Sometimes we compose the original together.

 

My kids are pleased with their finished products. I tell them we're collaborating. I actually see it as modeling and guiding, and it seems to be effective.

 

We've been using this book. I love it. In fact, I just purchased a grade curriculum based on her work. I just haven't seen anything better.

[Mom28kds]

I don't think my 4th grader is up to par with her writing. I'm pretty sure she should be capable of better paragraphs than this. Most of the time she doesn't capitalize sentences or include punctuation. She doesn't use "super sentences" like we've discussed. She just puts something on paper to be finished with her assignment. Here's her paragraph from today:

 

 

I'm getting a new dog. his name is Pan. I would walk him and play with him. I hope he would watch TV with me. I would care for him give him food and watch him. I cant wait to get him tomorrow.

 

 

And this is AFTER I totally disregarded her first paper today that made absolutely no sense. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Doesn't this seem below a fourth grade level? Yeah, I know, all kids work at their own level, but I don't want her totally behind.

 

Good writing programs? Anyone use Writing Strands? Brave writer? Others?

 

You have just described my son. I'll be watching your thread! My DS is also a horrible speller :( I'm looking into changing my LA to include copywork and dictation like Language Lessons through Literature.