Is this crazy? WWE for a 12 yo

[shinyhappypeople]

We've finished week one of 7th grade.  It has been a short MM lesson and sloooowly working through lesson 2 of Student Writing Intensive A.  We both like SWI, but honestly it's too hard for her.  She does okay with the keyword outline, but is hitting lots of road bumps in getting from outline to paragraph.  She muddles through.  Sometimes its okay, sometimes its not quite okay, but it's her best effort.  And then somedays, like today, the task is too huge and she just can't bring herself to even start.  This isn't laziness or stubbornness.  It's being told to climb Everest without oxygen.  It's just.too.hard. 

 

I really, really love SWI and see HUGE value in the program, but I'm wondering if we should hit the pause button and move all the way back to WWE1 and start from the beginning with that. 

 

I ordered HWOT Can-Do Printing (bless the person who mentioned that program!) and so we're starting back at square one with handwriting.  Maybe it makes sense to start back at square one with all writing related stuff.

 

[Miss Tick]

I'm no writing expert, but WWE1 is not what you want, maybe WWE3. It would practice, writing from dictation, summary and narration, and getting those summaries from your head to the paper. WWE 4 is the same, but a step up in length of passages, and with slightly less scaffolding. I wouldn't start with 4, although I might modify 3 to be more like 4 if she caught on quickly.

 

It isn't clear to me where you think she struggles, exactly, and I am not familiar with SWI. Can you help her break down the tasks into manageable sizes and then work with her through them?

 

Good luck finding what you all need.

[PeterPan]

What's the reason she's having trouble with SWI A?  She has an expressive language issue?  She isn't engaged?  It isn't visual enough?  My dd totally shuts down when things aren't engaging her.  My guess is (just my guess) it's not engaging her.  Try taking the *technique* for the lesson (keyword outline, clear rubric, etc.), but doing it with a model she'll actually find INTERESTING and do it more visually, using a whiteboard, mindmapping app like Popplet, or (better) Inspiration software.

 

Around that age my dd really enjoyed Muse magazine articles.  They're quirky, funny, and well-written, none of which you can say about the SWI A models, sorry.

 

Btw, Bravewriter might give you ideas that work for her.  If you like structure, you can bump up to WWS, which is highly structured, albeit a bit dry.  No, I would not recommend WWE for a dc with a disability as a way to write, because WWE is basically therapy for low working memory.  If you want therapy, use more engaging therapy materials and don't teach them writing sucks. 

Can she type?  Like seriously type at least well enough to get her thoughts out?  And are you letting her type for this? And are you incentivizing typing by giving her an email account, forum access, cool projects?  The best projects EVER are at the Mrs. Renz 4th Grade Book Projects site.

[Heathermomster]

We've finished week one of 7th grade.  It has been a short MM lesson and sloooowly working through lesson 2 of Student Writing Intensive A.  We both like SWI, but honestly it's too hard for her.  She does okay with the keyword outline, but is hitting lots of road bumps in getting from outline to paragraph.  She muddles through.  Sometimes its okay, sometimes its not quite okay, but it's her best effort.  And then somedays, like today, the task is too huge and she just can't bring herself to even start.  This isn't laziness or stubbornness.  It's being told to climb Everest without oxygen.  It's just.too.hard. 

 

I really, really love SWI and see HUGE value in the program, but I'm wondering if we should hit the pause button and move all the way back to WWE1 and start from the beginning with that. 

 

I ordered HWOT Can-Do Printing (bless the person who mentioned that program!) and so we're starting back at square one with handwriting.  Maybe it makes sense to start back at square one with all writing related stuff.

Scribe for her and talk her through the process.  Do the prework with her and scribe the KWO.  On the next day, help her write the paragraph and maybe edit.  Edit with her on the third day for sure.  My DS could not write a paragraph on his own IEW style until late 7th grade.  He was the only boy in a class with a private tutor and 3 other dyslexic boys that could.  Writing is tough.

 

Can she type?  Typing for DS made all the difference.  You could also modify the KWOs and use mindmapping instead.  Watching the Dr. Haynes webinar might help you as it discusses scaffolding strategies.

[PeterPan]

Heather, we were thinking things at the same time, lol.  :D

[shinyhappypeople]

Where she struggles:  the part where you put a pencil down onto the paper and write a coherent collection of thoughts.  

 

What she writes well: shopping lists, ingredient lists (like in a recipe)

 

What she struggles with: literally everything else.  Her punctuation is inconsistent at best, and normally non-existent.  She mixes lower case and capital letters depending on her mood and the phases of the moon.  Sometimes she can come up with a decent sentence, sometimes the ability is just... poof!... gone.   :banghead:

 

She's trying hard, she's not being lazy or stubborn, she wants to do well.  <---- repeating that more to remind myself than anyone else.

 

WWE 3 is beyond her ability.  She's a bright, interesting person who is (just guessing here) writing on an early 2nd grade level.

 

She won't let me scribe for her.   :banghead:    I suspect it's a pride thing.  She is well aware that other kids her age can do things that she hasn't mastered yet.  She wants to be a 7th grader, work like a 7th grader, achieve like a 7th grader.  

 

I looked at Killgallon Sentence Composing (Elementary) and it's off the table.  I already know that the sentence "chunking" would slay her.

 

We've done a little bit of diagramming and she really liked it.  That may be something to explore further.

 

There is no curriculum that I know of for kids with this level of writing disorder.  It sucks.  What sucks even worse is trying to research it online and reading how there hasn't been much research into this type of learning problem.  Why not???  

 

:banghead:

 

Can y'all tell how frustrating this is???

[PeterPan]

Ok, she has dysgraphia (diagnosed, yes?), which is print to paper.  And she has EF issues with organization.  But what happens if she just like goes to a movie with you and discusses it?  Can she do it orally?  Can she discuss?

 

What technology (devices) does she have access to? 

[Heathermomster]

DS is dyslexic and dysgraphic.  We used a writing tutor for all the reasons you described.  I came alongside DS and pointed to the tutor when he was frustrated. She is a wonderful lady so I pointed that fact out as well.  I am not a particular fan of IEW style writing but it worked for DS.  Pen used Bravewriter so maybe check that out.  I am not sure which writing programs have an online teacher component.  

 

Our students feel personally attacked when we are critical of their writing.  We have to work with them gently so that they see we are helping them.  Maybe sit down with your DD and discuss the situation and come up with a strategy for handling frustration.  Develop a plan of action with a rewards system built in. Writing progress will take time so be realistic.  Write down expectations and both of you sign it.  Build in some hot tea and cookies into the process.  DS is very good about soliciting my input now, but that ability took some time to develop.

 

ETA:  Typing has helped with the punctuation, capitalization, and spelling issues.  There are also programs like Ginger and SpeakIt that can help.

 

 

[Storygirl]

I agree that this sounds like dysgraphia. If you don't have a diagnosis, you might look into getting some evaluations. As she heads toward high school and then college, you will want to have evidence that this has been a problem over the long term, in case she needs some accommodations for tests or classes.

 

DS11 has dysgraphia, and we'll be working with his school to form a plan; we haven't really figured out a good approach for him yet.  I think the other responses have some good ideas for you to consider.

[PeterPan]

Just coming back to this for a second.  Has she has evals?  Detailed language testing?  Sometimes people assume they know what's going on and don't get the thorough evals.  Then they can't dig in with interventions.  When you're *this* frustrated, you need evals to give you information to figure it out.  If you've had evals, dig out the report and reread it.  See what testing was done.  See what funky numbers are in there that you can do something with.  Look for discrepancies to give you clues to where this is stemming from.  

 

My ds ostensibly has dyslexia, but he also has significant metalinguistic awareness, EF, etc. issues which are things we can *target* with interventions.  There was this information buried in his evals that I reread and go ok, what do I DO with that?  Like when you say she can't get out a sentence, there can actually be some language issues in there testing would catch, things you would intervene therapeutically on.  You figure that out with evals.  That's how you discriminate what's causing the symptoms vs. what they overall look like.

[shinyhappypeople]

She's had evals done, but I'm waiting to get the report.   I'm rethinking everything.  Again.  Sorry.  I'm starting to annoy myself.  I can't imagine how y'all must feel about my flip-flopping.

 

Since I last posted, DD has decided to continue with SWI and I will scribe (mostly).  We finished Boy and the Nuts yesterday afternoon and I scribed.  With me scribing it was challenging but not overwhelming.  It allowed her to focus on organizing her thoughts into sentences and not mess around with anything else.

 

The best part is that, toward the end, she grabbed the paper and finished it off on her own, and gave it the most hilarious ending ever.  Just reminds how much creative, funny stuff is in that beautiful brain of hers :)  Anyway,  I have to share the ending :)

 

Story she's supposed to rewrite: a little boy reaches into a jar on nuts, fills his fist to bulging with the nuts so he can't get it out of the jar.  He cries.  A passerby tells him to drop some of the nuts so he can get his hand off.  Motto: sometimes you have to be satisfied with less, etc.  

 

But now, I present you with Kiddo's ending.  

 

(I'm copying it exactly as she wrote it so you can see what I'm talking about in terms of some of her writing struggles, and imagine her handwriting: every letter the same height, floating about below and occasionally (accidentally) on the lines.  BUT, also notice how great her IDEAS are.  She had a lot of fun writing this last part.  Never thought "fun" and "writing" would be in the same sentence for her.)

 

and once he pulled his hand out.  That angerd the wallnut god.  The wallnut god was so angery that he sumind a tornato made of Lightning on the overworld and Destroyd the entir contanant and the wall nut god was pleesd.

 

"And the walnut god was pleased." :rofl:

 

I think she just needs to laugh when she writes.  She has a great sense of humor.

[PeterPan]

So she DEFINITELY needs to be given dictation software, hehe.  She's got a fabulous writer brain inside, locked up by disabilities.  The tech can unlock that.  What tech does she have access to?  Maybe christmas can be a time to change that?  I think the new kindle fire tablets are supposed to be sub-$100, yes?  And they'll have dictation, yes?  Just astonishing.

 

That's exciting that you have a full report coming soon!  Should help immensely.  Have you had her eyes checked as well?  By a developmental optometrist?