Help! Winning with Writing or EIW for a very reluctant 9 year old?

[nurse_kris]

My 9 year old DS hates to write. Which one of these programs would work out better for a reluctant writer? We will be doing 4th grade this year. 

[shinyhappypeople]

Do you need it to be fairly independent?  Is that what's driving your choices?  I found myself needing to re-teach lessons from EIW 4th grade, which is part of why we eventually dropped it altogether.  I haven't used Winning with Writing.  

[almondbutterandjelly]

I used this for my reluctant writer, just to get her to produce any kind of content.  She used a dry-erase marker.

http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/product/productDet.jsp?productItemID=1%2C689%2C949%2C371%2C929%2C098&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474395181113&bmUID=1437879737592

 

It made writing painless, but taught her the different kinds of writing.

[Farrar]

What are your goals for writing? And what skills does he have or lack? What other programs work well for him - what's his learning style?

[Tiramisu]

Same problem here!

 

I was planning on using Writing Tales 1. I've used it before with a reluctant writer and it worked very well. But my nine year old dd took one look at it and said, no way. We're in the process of working on her vision issues and just got an OT eval, and keeping her difficulties in mind, I've also realized she might be right and it might not be the best match. 

 

I also looked at Meaningful Composition because it breaks down things so nicely, but I think the small font and formatting are going to be a problem for her.

 

Going through the forum this week, I ran across the Just Write series published by EPS, and bought used copies of books 1 and 2 very inexpensively on Amazon to check out. I may start with the second book but I wanted to get a sense of the progression and if there's anything that would be helpful in the first book.

[Momling]

I didn't care for Winning with Writing when I tried it 5 years ago. I don't know anything about EIW.

 

Have you looked at The Paragraph Book? http://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/literacy/writing-handwriting/the-paragraph-book/about-the-program

[Guest]

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Edited June 25, 2016 by Guest

[nurse_kris]

Do you need it to be fairly independent?  Is that what's driving your choices?  I found myself needing to re-teach lessons from EIW 4th grade, which is part of why we eventually dropped it altogether.  I haven't used Winning with Writing.  

 

 

What are your goals for writing? And what skills does he have or lack? What other programs work well for him - what's his learning style?

 

 

 

EIW

 

Winning With Writing was not a good choice for my reluctant writer when we tried it a few years ago. When EIW first came out, we switched and never turned back. EIW teaches writing in small manageable chunks and has been a blessing for my students.

 

For us, WWW did not have enough instruction. EIW gives writing assignments that are broken down into daily lessons, so the student knows what is expected each day. The assignments in WWW were not broken down in this way, and even I had difficulty at times knowing how much time to give my student to complete a particular assignment.

 

We are getting ready to start our 4th year using EIW (between my students, we have used levels 2,3,4,6,7,&8), and I have not heard my kids whine or complain about doing their writing lessons since, no joke! :)

. He will write if given copywork, but complains about it. I have had him journal, but that is a struggle as well. Really the only thing driving my choice is something that isn't too demanding of him. If it requires a lot of writing right of the bat, it will just end in tears. It sounds like EIW would work out better. He really has very little writing skill. We did Logic of English last year. Independent is good, but not a requirement. 

[BlessedMom]

Highly recommend EIW for a reluctant writer.

The video lessons are short but specific and the writing process is broken into very manageable steps.

 

[sweetpea3829]

We started EIW this summer with my two 3rd graders.  We started with level 2 for the summer, just to kind of get our feet wet, and will complete level 3 this coming year.  So far, so good.  The lessons are short and manageable.  I can't speak for long-term retention but...it has worked so far.  In level 2, the first few weeks of lessons are focused on grammar concepts.  He doesn't dive into the actual writing process until halfway through.