Is my 5th grader's writing enough?

[gratitude]

I am wondering if my 5th grader's writing is enough practice for his age.  Writing isn't an area that he does voluntarily.  So he isn't getting any outside of school writing practice.  He reads and learns and draws voluntarily.  All of his writing practice is entirely whatever I assign.

 

We are seven weeks into the school year.  Here are his weekly writing assignments (not all of his curriculum, but the areas he has writing in):

 

*Rod and Staff English 5.  I have him do evens or odds for the student written section (Is this OK?).  I have him do any of the composition assignments.  I do use about 1/2 of the worksheets that come with the program.

 

*Apologia General (strong area, so started early):  He is doing the notebook journal that Apologia sells with the program.  He is doing quite a bit of writing daily in it, which includes lab write-ups.

 

*Dictation:  We do this daily with Spelling Wisdom from Simply Charlotte Mason (he does well with dictation for learning spelling, and he never did well with spelling lists).

 

*Rod and Staff Bible 5:  There is some writing in it.  Mostly it is one-sentence answers to questions.

 

*Cultures:  He is doing a cultures / geography theme this year with younger siblings.  There is a little bit of writing in it.  Not much, and not daily.  This is in lieu of history this year.

 

 

Are we working on his writing enough?  This is such an important area, and I keep wondering if I am missing something for his grade.  Am I missing anything?

 

 

 

 

[Mandylubug]

For my family, I would say yes, it is enough. My boys loathe writing and I just do not force it. I do require all the composition assignments and they earn a dollar for each one that is completed with good effort and attitude.

 

 

[....]

I also think it's enough writing.  We did R&S 5 a couple of years ago and I really liked the writing exercises in it.

[gratitude]

Thank you for the reassurance ladies!

[Ellie]

I am wondering if my 5th grader's writing is enough practice for his age.  Writing isn't an area that he does voluntarily.  So he isn't getting any outside of school writing practice.  He reads and learns and draws voluntarily.  All of his writing practice is entirely whatever I assign.

 

We are seven weeks into the school year.  Here are his weekly writing assignments (not all of his curriculum, but the areas he has writing in):

 

*Rod and Staff English 5.  I have him do evens or odds for the student written section (Is this OK?).  I have him do any of the composition assignments.  I do use about 1/2 of the worksheets that come with the program.

 

*Apologia General (strong area, so started early):  He is doing the notebook journal that Apologia sells with the program.  He is doing quite a bit of writing daily in it, which includes lab write-ups.

 

*Dictation:  We do this daily with Spelling Wisdom from Simply Charlotte Mason (he does well with dictation for learning spelling, and he never did well with spelling lists).

 

*Rod and Staff Bible 5:  There is some writing in it.  Mostly it is one-sentence answers to questions.

 

*Cultures:  He is doing a cultures / geography theme this year with younger siblings.  There is a little bit of writing in it.  Not much, and not daily.  This is in lieu of history this year.

 

 

Are we working on his writing enough?  This is such an important area, and I keep wondering if I am missing something for his grade.  Am I missing anything?

 

I would skip the R&S worksheets and have him do *all* of the assignments in the textbook, on actual paper, and I might even consider requiring the use of a fountain pen. :-)

 

The worksheets are completely optional.

 

The authors of the R&S English texts assumed they would be used in one-room, multigrade schools with a single teacher, who would not have time to lecture, or do much work orally, and so they wrote the lessons to be self-teaching, and for all of the problems and whatnot to be necessary. The worksheets are intended to be used after the lessons in the textbook, by children who have already finished their assignments and need to be kept busy.

[hollyhock]

Sounds about right to me. :)

[Targhee]

In all sincerity I think "enough" at 5th grade is different for different kids. Somehow we don't seem to care if everyone is doing the same level of math or reading but we get uptight about writing. If your student is doing this work, even though writing is not something they like, and is challenged but improving, then you are in the zone of "enough." What is enough for my 9 yo is about the same as my 7 yo. but I know at these ages there will be changes, growth, aha moments, etc. There are kids who can write reems each day, and those who have ideas but writing (even typing) is a laborious task. I have to remind myself that I didn't take my kids out of a one-size-fits-all school room to recreate another one at home.

[Penelope]

I don't know that I would add anything, but I think writing narrations of what they have read is a good idea so I would try to incorporate that into the cultures study or have him sometimes write about the books he reads for school. I would do that on a day when he didn't have a composition assignment.

[gratitude]

Thank you Ellie for the Rod and Staff English insights.  The text book does say in the front that the work sheets aren't needed as part of the program, and I had forgotten that fact.  Thank you for the reminder.  Thank you also for the insights that they should be doing *all* of the written problems.  I do the oral part with them orally, and then have tended towards having them do about half of the written section (or less).  This means they are only getting half of the benefits of the program.  It is a good reminder.  I am sure it would meet with some complaints from all 3 of my oldest to do *all* of the writing in the R&S written section, but they would get used to it.  The complaints wouldn't last.   All 3 of them are a bit writing resistant and need encouragement in this area.

 

Thank you Penelope for the reminder about written narrations.  He has done that other years for history, and he isn't doing any written narrations this year.  Your idea of incorporating it into the culture study is a good idea.

 

Blessings,

 

 

[texasmama]

This is more writing than my boys did in 5th grade. 

[Penelope]

I think you will find a lot of people that think doing all of the written exercises for grammar in R and S is overkill. It is for us. I don't want to have them do all the exercises just to have pencil to paper, if the grammar is already understood. I'd rather have them increase writing in other ways. YMMV of course. :)

 

I haven't used their composition exercises, so I don't know about those.