Acceleration in everything but writing/composition

[SoCal_Bear]

I am following a discussion in a Facebook group for parents of gifted children in my local area. It seems that most parents have commented that their kids are accelerated in most everything except writing and composition. It seems that it is generally on par with chronological age or up to a year ahead. Has this been your experience?
 

[Dmmetler]

For my DD, it depends. Her writing is ahead of age/grade when she types it, but if she has to hand write it, it's on par for her age or, if anything, a little below. She simply doesn't have much stamina in writing longhand on paper. It's like if she has to worry about the handwriting, the content falls apart.

 

[EKS]

Our experience is similar to dmmetler's.  My son's composition skills are a year or two above age-grade level when he is allowed to type and below grade level when he needs to write by hand.  He has handwriting issues that border on dysgraphia which make things worse.

 

I think the reason that accelerated kids tend to lag behind in the writing department is that solid composition skills require many things that generally aren't affected by intellectual giftedness, most notably motor skills and executive functioning (for planning, organization, etc).

[8filltheheart]

There was a post not too long ago by someone with a 10 yr old dd whose writing skills were phenomenal. The piece she posted was simply beautiful.

 

However, looking at the age of your child, 5, being advanced is all over the place and unpredictable.

[Crimson Wife]

DD's typed compositions have always been advanced but her willingness to do them is hit-or-miss. She CAN do them, but if she isn't interested in the assignment it's like pulling teeth.

 

Also, she does NOT do well with timed writing because she's such a perfectionist. She wants her writing to be perfect and she has trouble just cranking out something adequate within the time allotted. That's something I really worry about if she winds up going to a B&M high school.

[Lovingparent]

DD's typed compositions have always been advanced but her willingness to do them is hit-or-miss. She CAN do them, but if she isn't interested in the assignment it's like pulling teeth.

 

Also, she does NOT do well with timed writing because she's such a perfectionist. She wants her writing to be perfect and she has trouble just cranking out something adequate within the time allotted. That's something I really worry about if she winds up going to a B&M high school.

I could have written this verbatim for my ds!

I didn't pressure my son to write when he was younger, due to motor skills, dexterity issues. Writing literally made him cry. By the time he was 9, he learned to type and he went from 0 to writing multiple pages. However, if he does not like a subject or an essay topic, it's an entirely different thing. Pulling teeth describes it pretty accurately :)

Ditto on the timed writing. 

However, after he learned to type, his composition skills matched his acceleration with other subjects. 

[EndOfOrdinary]

You described my son. If he is narrating, the things that come out of his mouth are fantastic and do not at all sound his age. He is also fine if he narrates, I type, then he edits and writes long hand. It is the writing long hand originally that clogs up his brain because his hands cannot move fast enough. Poetry is another one where he is more than willing to write all by himself and the writing is very advanced. However, the poetry is short. When it comes to anything longer, he just does not have the stamina to get the thoughts out fast enough. There has been a major shift this last school year (9.5), so by around 11 I don't know if you will have any idea that he started writing late.

 

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[eternalsummer]

My son (almost 6) is like this; he writes well as long as he doesn't have to physically write.  I've recently decided to separate the two; for handwriting practice he does copywork, and for most of his composition work I transcribe for him, and then he copies it.  This has eliminated a lot of frustration about writing and also improved his handwriting, as he can focus on it solely when he's practicing it without worrying about composition at the same time.  He is better at math than either of these things, though.

 

My daughter (almost 9) is fine with handwriting; her composition is at approximately the same level, minus maybe a grade, as her reading (7th), but her grammar and spelling are on grade level (3rd).   I see no need to push to bring the grammar/mechanics/spelling up to the level of her composition; I figure it will come in time.  She is not particularly good at math - maybe a grade ahead.

[Tanikit]

My DD6 is slowly reaching a point where her handwriting is becoming easier and she is able to write more. Her writing though is still well behind her narration skills, but it is slowly getting better. Her spelling is advanced for her age, but again behind (as in she would not be able to spell all) the words she would use in her narrations. I think it is just a case of waiting for everything to come together.

 

I know when I look at my own composition books as a child that I was at a very normal level through first grade, but suddenly in second grade, despite a few spelling issues, my own writing improved greatly - I have no idea how many grades ahead it was at that point as writing I have seen coming out of 6th and 7th grade students varies so drastically that it is impossible to say what is normal.

[musicianmom]

My dd did no composition until this year (3rd grade). Even copy work was torture. This is despite being an excellent speller and reading fluently since age 3.

[Korrale]

Yes, my son is about 2-4th grade in pretty much everything except writing. At 4 his motor skills just aren't there. And because of that his composition is not there. However his narration is possibly better than a 4 year old.

[La Texican]

I wrote a post saying something like that, but deleted it.

[sunnyday]

It seems to me a pretty common complaint of homeschoolers is that parents feel particularly uncomfortable teaching writing. So it doesn't necessarily surprise me that parents would have a hard time divorcing composition skills (vocabulary, logical structure, grammar) from handwriting skills (which depend on fine-motor development and a "logic-stage" kind of synthesis between creating words and moving the hand to generate the letters that spell the words.)

 

My son can create a multiple-paragraph expository report that holds together in a logical way and stays on topic, so I feel like his composition skills are a bit above first grade level. Like many professionals in writing and other fields, he uses a transcriptionist. ;) He also needs quite a bit of work in grammar, and his spelling is only slightly above his peers, but I see signs that just like in math, he doesn't need much practice to solidify concepts, so I'm going to call him a bit advanced there too.

 

Similarly, his handwriting is average to barely above average, and he struggles with reversals and letter formation, but it only takes one time being instructed for him to adopt better letters (eg. his h became a D'Nealian h as soon as the classroom did a practice sheet on that letter) and he brute forces his way through the reversals by using mental tricks or searching out models to help him.

 

But yeah, writing is generally probably not quite as far advanced as his math and reading...it's a bit hard to quantify. :) Of course, my kid is probably not gifted either, or not very, so maybe it's not even relevant!

[Megbo]

Ds6 is noticeably more accelerated/gifted in writing than he is in some other subjects (math and science), but writing is an area we've focused on this year and one that he really enjoys and asks to do every day. He's always had advanced fine motor skills, and was copying words out of his favorite books long before he could read them.   

 

[avilma]

Writing is the only area I can say for sure my dd6 is highly accelerated. She can easily write a 3 page meaningful story with 5 or 6 spelling errors and very few grammar errors in about 1 hour. She doesn't love doing that though. I can't make her do it but she does it when her teacher assigns it (we afterschool). In math she is about to finish MEP 2, not very advanced compared to other children in this board. I think the reason she can write so easily is because we encouraged her to draw every day since she was 2. Lately she has been pleading with me to teach her cursive, but I am holding off on that since I do not write well in cursive myself.

[slackermom]

DD's typed compositions have always been advanced but her willingness to do them is hit-or-miss. She CAN do them, but if she isn't interested in the assignment it's like pulling teeth.

 

Also, she does NOT do well with timed writing because she's such a perfectionist. She wants her writing to be perfect and she has trouble just cranking out something adequate within the time allotted. That's something I really worry about if she winds up going to a B&M high school.

 

My DD9 is like this as well.  It's one of the reasons we are homeschooling now.  She is a perfectionist, plus she wants to have her entire writing assignment worked out in her head before she even starts to write. She has said to me, "How can I write my main idea until I have had ALL of my ideas?"  And this is a girl with lots of ideas, and very high standards.  Typing does help with the mechanical issues, though she is frustrated with her lack of speed.

 

Last year she was in third grade in public school, and on MANY occasions cried over writing assignments both at home and at school.  Third grade is the year our state starts standardized testing, which includes a writing section, so her teacher gave students a writing test each week as part of the test prep. So DD went from always getting an A in writing to suddenly getting a C or a D.  By the end of the year, she had her writing grade up to an A again, but the damage was done, and she is convinced is a bad writer.

 

Because of this, I put writing/composition on the back burner when we started to homeschool halfway through this school year.  We are using MCT for grammar and vocabulary, but in terms of writing, for now I just have her do occasional summaries of what she has worked on, such as describing a science project she did, or a field trip she went on, plus writing basic sentences in her French workbook.

 

The only time she has written an essay this term was in order to apply for a scholarship, and she won that, so I know she still has in it her.

[AimeeM]

In my son's case (almost 5), yes, this has been our experience. He is progressing nicely in maths, reading, and elsewhere, but his writing skills are very "pre-k boy" appropriate. He doesn't care for coloring or anything messy really (he very tentatively dips a finger in paint and will carefully make a line, before washing up, lol). We're going very slowly with writing. It HAS made choosing curricula pretty tricky. I'm trying to do CLE math verbally, for this reason, and we skip the "speliing test" portions in his reading program (PAL), and we're holding off on the PAL writing program another year.

[Staceyshoe]

My son is very STEM-y and probably needs remedial help in writing.  I would guesstimate that his writing skills are at a 3rd grade level.  It's far below every other academic subject.  No LD, and his verbal ability is extremely high.  But there is a serious lack of motivation for him and has been poor instruction from me (who didn't want to "push" and hoped everything would come up roses one day with little effort).  It's really becoming an issue with placement in other subjects, and I regret not addressing it sooner.  We may try tutoring next year to try to get him up to speed.

[imagine.more]

As far as the ability to create well-informed thoughts and communicate them clearly my 5 year old does excellent, on par with his academic level in other areas. But putting pencil to paper? Not at all. He's exactly on grade level, Kindergarten, with actual writing. Each letter is still formed individually and getting him to do copy work, even short things, is like pulling teeth. 

 

So yes, I'd say writing does tend to be the one thing accelerated kids are often not accelerated in for the reasons Kai mentioned above. Motor skills are often not affected by sheer brain power...in fact some gifted kids are behind in certain motor skills, my son being one of them. That theory would fit with several other posters' responses that their advanced learners are advanced writers when typing, but not in handwriting....or what I've often seen which is that advanced kids are not always advanced writers in K-2nd grade but by high school have become advanced writers. Essentially their fine motor skills and executive functioning have finally caught up with their verbal and reasoning abilities. That's just my thought based purely on anecdotal evidence. But it is interesting to see everyone's experiences. 

[boscopup]

Ime the parents dont teach composition skills at home as intensely as they do reading and math facts, so students do lag in that area if their classroom has no advanced instruction.

 

This is probably true somewhat, but I don't think it's the main reason why gifted kids are often behind in writing but ahead everywhere else. After all, most gifted kids are teaching themselves reading and math, not having their parents drill those things to death. :tongue_smilie:

 

My oldest has taken a longer time to get to writing. He attended private school for K and half of first. I have his "journal" from first grade. Most of the entries are just the prompts without anything written after them. He was already not writing much while in school, so it clearly wasn't my lack of teaching writing. ;) In fact, I've pushed him and pushed him and now have him writing a decent amount comfortably. It's not the amount they require in public schools most of the time, but it's what SWB recommends (being able to write their narrations by the end of 4th grade). In my son's case, I think there are two things factoring in - 1) His brain focused on reading and doing math, putting less emphasis on fine motor skills, and 2) He was a 29 weeker preemie and may have had some core strength issues which are improving. While he met all physical milestones at doctor appointments for adjusted age, he never was tested for low tone and other such things.

 

My youngest, otoh, has fantastic writing ability. His fine motor skills are miles ahead of either of his brothers at the same age. For example, my older two could not buckle their own carseat harness until age 5. Youngest could do it at 3. Older two couldn't button a dress shirt until age 5. Youngest could do that at 3 also. So it's no surprise to me that my youngest can write better and is able to easily copy a full sentence at not-quite-5 (with either hand, but he tends to use his left hand most often now). Youngest is also my most advanced reader for age, and his overall language understanding is better - from literary analysis to grammar. But math? He's a little ahead of average, but not blazingly ahead. He isn't teaching himself multiplication yet and still needs objects to help him with addition/subtraction. Of the 3 kids, he's the least ahead in math for age. Interesting that his fine motor skills and language skills are so high, and his math skills aren't.

 

[SandyKC]

Writing compositions is a more advanced skill in many ways, so I think it does tend to lag behind (to a degree).  In order to hand write sophisticated compositions, a child has to already have the underlying reading, vocabulary, and spelling skills.  If a child is allowed to use speech-to-text dictation, then the child is more likely to create compositions on the same level that he expresses himself verbally.  So, I think in the elementary grades--and maybe even up into middle school for some gifted kids--their writing skills seem to "lag behind" their other abilities. Once they have the foundational reading, vocab, and spelling skills in place though--then they can focus solely on creating their great compositions! :-D

[Arcadia]

I find writing/composition harder to gauge than math or science. My boys do prefer drawing comics to writing essays though.  If it is a topic they really want to write about, the quality is way higher than what they churn for the sake of a writing assignment.  Composition is also affected by what you read and your life experience.  Math on the other hand is not as affected. 

For example, my neighborhoods kids all go to school.  My kids rarely see kids around and so they have writer's block for an essay topic on friends or sleepovers.  In math or science, they won't have the same problem so it is easy to accelerate to their pace.

 

 

Rofl. You obviously do not live in the NE. These kids start Kumon at 3. Gifted and drilled in both math and rdg.

 

Same here in Silicon Valley. 

[boscopup]

Rofl. You obviously do not live in the NE. These kids start Kumon at 3. Gifted and drilled in both math and rdg.there is no wait for them to teach themselves, it is an attitude that the gifted are ready, and also need to learn howto learn at tbeir level.

 

Nope, down south. :D Half the kids don't even go to preschool here (and we're a high-tech engineering/rocket-scientist area). I don't know anyone that uses Kumon, though I've seen there is one here.

 

I was actually talking about this forum when I made that comment though. ;)

[Black-eyed Suzan]

My son is very STEM-y and probably needs remedial help in writing.  I would guesstimate that his writing skills are at a 3rd grade level.  It's far below every other academic subject.  No LD, and his verbal ability is extremely high.  But there is a serious lack of motivation for him and has been poor instruction from me (who didn't want to "push" and hoped everything would come up roses one day with little effort).  It's really becoming an issue with placement in other subjects, and I regret not addressing it sooner.  We may try tutoring next year to try to get him up to speed.

 

Thank you, Stacey, for this. I could have written it about my son (except he is 7). You have helped nudge me to focus more on writing in the upcoming year.

[Targhee]

My thought is that it's just too slow - mind is going so much faster than the hand it is frustrating. Also, mine are all VSL and organization of thoughts is difficult.

[La Texican]

I was going to post a couple of things earlier, but second guessed myself because I'm only in the "figuring stuff out" stage. Because OP was talking about Facebook posts, I would assume many people just find it more interesting to talk with gifted kids about NOVA, other documentaries, and advanced math concepts than it is to spend time working on the mechanics of grammar and spelling. Also (not here) I've seen people express the sentiment that they fear direct instruction will squash a gifted kids "spark".

 

 

I know I seem to take the most boring parts of school and bring them to our homeschool. The other day I had my kid looking up his spelling words in the dictionary and copying definitions. It's because in the future I'd like for his to be able to take what's in his head and bring it out in the real world. It's why I had him doing those "how to draw pictures step by step" real early, before he was writing letters.

 

I deleted my post because all I have is plans. I haven't done it yet. Well, we have been doing The Complete Writer, and he's on level two. We're about done with MCT Practice/Sentence/Grammar Island. I just bought the public school version of the Shurley Grammar textbook. Then I plan to buy the Killagon series.

 

Good writing comes from having something to say, and from reading good books. But this plan comes from teaching form before content. I know we're not talking about prodigies, but I've seen discussions that it's more common to see a nine or ten year old performing music or math on the level of a talented adult than it is to see a kid that age publishing novels because they don't have the life experience to write at that level yet.