Adding writing back in

[Ritsumei]

My 8yo was slow to develop the fine motor skills necessary to write, so we did all sorts of things to reduce the writing. Verbal narrations, scribing, white boards... you name it. Now, his fine motor is doing much better, and I want to start sneaking in a few more bits of writing. He can do it, but he doesn't care to, and he *thinks* it's harder than it is. I want to kind of ease into putting more of the responsibility of writing on him. Plus, his endurance isn't great with those muscles yet. Our transition is going to need to be gradual. But after all this time thinking about how to get rid of the writing, I'm having a hard time reversing gears and coming up with clever ways of sneaking it in.

 

What says the hive? How do you sneak the "vegetable" in for your able, but reluctant writers?

[Kathie in VA]

Hmm maybe start working to memorize something ... And one tool to do that is to copy it. ...piece by piece over time if needed. After copying it once maybe copy it again but in a fun way like different colors or size of letters. Maybe flash cards with first few words and see if they remember the rest. Or maybe they can write it out on index cards to mix and try to rearrange later.

 

How about post cards to friends and family?

 

Draw pictures and then write captions and comments to go with it. Maybe their own comic strip?

 

I startedy dc with classical writing Aesop A but I had them dictate their story to me. Then they copied it themselves "so it would be in their handwriting". Later, when they were ready, I dictated it back to them. The short fables were great for them to write and they enjoyed it. I bound all their stories with a report cover and they showed it off to GramGram.

[OneStepAtATime]

Kathie has some great suggestions!

 

What about using the Start Write software to type out pieces of information in topics he is learning about and having him trace those each day until muscle stamina and muscle memory get stronger, then he can free write below the passage as his copywork practice for a bit, then write it without seeing it?  Start Write is excellent for giving the parent the ability to type something out with a tight dot pattern or a loose dot pattern or a whole host of other options.  Awesome resource.

 

Also, you can get lined dry erase boards that are not that much thicker than paper.  He could write some things using the dry erase board and colored markers.  Less strain but he is still building up writing skills.  As he gets stronger and more fluent you can transition more to paper and less to the board.

 

Honestly, I would also start him on typing, too.  Hand writing may always be something he struggles with and you don't want him to avoid writing in depth as he gets older so he doesn't have to write much.  The kids have enjoyed Type to Learn 4.  You are a secret agent and you type to save information.  You can play games, too, but they are all typing games.  You cannot play unless you are typing.  Adjust w.p.m. to about 5 and accuracy to 95% or even 90% when he first starts out.  If handwriting is a challenge, it will probably take time to build up muscle memory for typing, too.  You don't want him rushing to meet the w.p.m. requirement since accuracy is far more important at the beginning.  You want him to develop good muscle memory for accurate key strokes.  As his typing accuracy improves so will his speed.  You can adjust expectations upward as he progresses.  Homeschool Buyer's Co-op usually has this on sale.  

[MerryAtHope]

Perhaps you could compromise with him and have him do some writing each day, and then some orally? "We'll take turns--you write a sentence, and then you can dictate the rest to me." (Or whatever amount you can easily start with--and then gradually build up over time.)

 

Christmas wish lists are a great way to sneak in some writing this time of year!

 

I see that you are using AAS 1. AAS has a gradual progression for increasing the student’s stamina and fluency in writing that’s very helpful for reluctant writers. It starts with just words and short phrases in Level 1, bumps up to phrases and short sentences in Level 2, and progresses to 12 dictation sentences per step in Level 3.  Partway through that level, the Writing Station is introduced.  In this exercise, students write sentences of their own that they make up using some of their spelling words.

 

In this way, students have begun to use words in a more real-world context through dictation and writing, to help them transition to longer writing assignments.

 

Dictation and the Writing Station both serve as an important bridge between spelling words in the context of lists (where the patterns are similar), and more “real world†writing.  By the end of Level 3, students have mastered about 1000 words from the regular and reinforcement lists, and they have developed stamina and some beginning editing skills that will help them when they start a formal writing program.

 

I had a very reluctant writer at this age as well.  I remember in 2nd grade I had a goal of getting him to be able to write 2 short sentences in one sitting without complaining.  In 3rd grade I bumped that up to a short, 4 sentence paragraph.  We worked gradually toward these goals throughout the year, just a little at a time.  Decide what a reasonable goal is for your son, and then gradually work towards it.  Some people use time or number of words for their goal–write for 3 minutes and then do the rest orally, or write 3 words for example.  When he can do that, bump it up to 4 minutes or 4 words, and so on.  This gives him a smaller goal to work towards that he can accomplish and be proud of a new achievement, while gradually increasing his skills and stamina for writing.

 

Also remember that writing doesn't have to be just just pencil and paper.  You can let him use a finger in sand or cornmeal, or a marker on a whiteboard, colored bathtub soap for bath time, or go outside with sidewalk chalk.  Here are some other tactile and kinesthetic suggestions. 

 

I hope this helps!  Merry  :-)

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

I'll be listening in.  My 8yo ds has struggled with writing as well.  He is finally doing better, but still tires of writing quickly.  I make sure to do only 1 or 2 subjects at a time to give him breaks between writing sessions.  That does help.

[alisoncooks]

:bigear:

[Farrar]

Well, I think Brave Writer is good for reluctant writers and if you read Julie's blog, she has a lot of suggestions for "sneaking" writing in and making it less of a chore and more about finding the enjoyment.

 

Some thoughts...

 

Short copywork, let him pick it. Sometimes I let my boys pick the passage and then teach it to me and make me do a dictation and grade my dictation. They feel such a rush of power. They don't realize that they just wrote out the sentence and then checked my spelling and mechanics. Ha.

 

Secret Code writing. This gets my boys every time. There's a good Murderous Maths secret codes book, but there's lot of others.

 

Pass along story passed back and forth between you. Or roll the dice story - each of you writes only the number of words on the dice before passing it back and forth. You can add different numbers of dice.

 

Make a sentence flip book.

 

Make a fill in the blank story for him.

 

Make him write in Mad Libs.

 

Remember that all the writing counts as writing. Filling out his name on a form is writing. Copywork or worksheets are writing. Oral narration is practicing writing skills too.

[Ritsumei]

You guys have some great ideas here! I'm all excited to get into it now, and (of course) it's Saturday tomorrow, and the day is full.right.up. Happily, I don't think that picking up the pace with spelling is going to be toooo hard a sell: he's been writing enough little notes to his dad and I that he's become aware that his spelling is non-standard enough to make communication difficult. We're nearly through AAS1, so I'll be looking forward to getting into the next bits. That's pretty awesome.

 

I think I'm going to hold back on too much typing, at least for now. He's done a little, because he likes to play on Memrise.com for Japanese - it's his favorite way to study, and we had to get him some something for typing skills to be able to do that. I don't think that we have anything like dysgraphia going on, just a boy that's not used to doing tons of writing, and is a little resistant to it. We've tried the one line of the narration thing, and it's so clunky that the narrations suffer, so some of these other ideas are going to be just the thing. I'm thinking that he'll especially enjoy the dice games.

 

Thank you all so much!

[Writerdaddy]

I thought I should say this because its important to emphasize: art, art, art

 

Drawing crayons markers papers

 

And also tracing games like mazes and connect the dots, or even coloring, etc. Kumon I think has some mazes workbooks.

 

The foundation for beating writing resistance early is in sitting down with paper and making marks. The more fun and engaged that physical activity, the earlier, the better, and it can turn into writing later, even much later. If its creative like art even better, even better than actual writing potentially.

[LindaOz]

We often start our table work time with copywork from literature, Bible or poetry. My kids like to have a candle burning while doing this - it's very atmospheric. Sometimes the copywork is simply for writing practice; sometimes it is more of a learning exercise, as in we talk about the structure, mechanics, vocab etc used. We then do the same passage from dictation two days later, and then try to rewrite it from memory at the end of the week - they've usually gone a long way towards memorizing it by this stage.

[Ritsumei]

I agree, art is fantastic. And I've done exactly as you suggest in the past. In fact, on my planning stuff, writing and art are right next to each other for exactly the reasons you're getting at: it's writing too. And it has helped *tons*. Now we're at the point where he needs to get some fluency with letters, too. Airplanes, swords, and Iron Man are fantastic, but you can only go so far... :)