3rd Grader Having Trouble Writing Complete Sentences + Phonics/Spelling

[umsami]

I know it's only the beginning of the school year for most....but still I thought this would be easier for my son.  Is it normal to expect one giant run on sentence at this level?  What would you recommend?  I think I have First Language Lessons or Writing With Ease Level 2 that was never used from a previous child--would that help?    Are there any mentor-sentence type programs for early elementary?  Help.  I've been trying to use a Brave Writer inspired approach of having him tell me the answer, and my being the scribe... but he still needs to learn to write the sentences himself.   Writing is the area where I feel most out of my comfort level teaching.    This child who is an excellent reader also has trouble with copy work and spelling in general.  So if I give him spelling or vocabulary to copy....with the words write in front of him... he will copy them wrong.  Wasn't an issue with his other siblings.  Some were natural spellers.  Others were not.  But they could all copy a word that was in front of them accurately.   Am thinking of adding in a remedial phonics type program, Logic of English maybe?  We did All About Reading Level 1, and it was like pulling teeth.  Torture--especially the fluency sheets.  He's a much better reader now, but I think he'd go running if he say the AAR materials again. ?

Edited September 14, 2018 by umsami

[LMD]

I think wwe would help. I'd also really recommend listening to SWB's writing lectures, they're phenomenal.  

https://welltrainedmind.com/p/a-plan-for-teaching-writing-focus-on-the-elementary-grades-mp3/

https://welltrainedmind.com/p/a-plan-for-teaching-writing-grades-k-12-mp3/

Run on sentences for that age (and older) is common, they're tunnel vision focused on getting the thoughts on paper - making sure what's on paper is technically correct is a different skill and the merge of those skills is a logic stage brain maturity issue. Ditto spelling.

With the copying, what do you think is happening? Do you think it's a taking enough care issue? Maybe focus on shorter copywork passages and 100% perfect copying for a little while.

Killgallon's sentence composing for elementary school might be helpful.

[Ellie]

15 hours ago, umsami said:

I know it's only the beginning of the school year for most....but still I thought this would be easier for my son.  Is it normal to expect one giant run on sentence at this level?  What would you recommend?  I think I have First Language Lessons or Writing With Ease Level 2 that was never used from a previous child--would that help?    Are there any mentor-sentence type programs for early elementary?  Help.  I've been trying to use a Brave Writer inspired approach of having him tell me the answer, and my being the scribe... but he still needs to learn to write the sentences himself.   Writing is the area where I feel most out of my comfort level teaching.    This child who is an excellent reader also has trouble with copy work and spelling in general.  So if I give him spelling or vocabulary to copy....with the words write in front of him... he will copy them wrong.  Wasn't an issue with his other siblings.  Some were natural spellers.  Others were not.  But they could all copy a word that was in front of them accurately.   Am thinking of adding in a remedial phonics type program, Logic of English maybe?  We did All About Reading Level 1, and it was like pulling teeth.  Torture--especially the fluency sheets.  He's a much better reader now, but I think he'd go running if he say the AAR materials again. ?

You could do Spalding. In fact, you could drop all English-related things in favor of Spalding, which covers everything: reading, spelling, penmanship, capitalization and punctuation, simple writing. You only need the manual (Writing Road to Reading) and a set of phonogram cards and you're good to go.

[MerryAtHope]

I don't think it's too unusual to have one giant run-on sentence! 

If you wanted to work on just spelling and phonics, you could do All About Spelling instead of reading (especially since he's an excellent reader). That's also a complete phonics program and includes dictation. (No fluency pages since he's not working on reading!). 

[nixpix5]

It can be quite common. If he is having struggles with being detailed oriented (as assumed by his challenges with copywork) then he will just need more practice at seeing capitals and punctuation as the brackets of a sentence. Over time kids get the feel that something isn't quite right after seeing sentences again and again in reading and writing. Some kids have a super sensitive radar for filing away those things. Often seen with natural spellers. Some kids just don't have that honed radar for being sensitive to see that. Just keep working on it. Use one of his run on sentences as a grammar lesson. Start working on breaking those apart.

My DD who is in 3rd is, what I feel, a solid writer for her age. Even she this morning strung a sentence together with commas in series that really didn't work. We sat and talked about why and broke it down into individual sentences. Do that for a while and he will get it ?

[LMD]

Another trick is to get them to read their sentences out loud to you. Then they can feel that they run out of breath (see where the commas should go!), and they physically hear how it doesn't sound right. Then you can edit it together. I would expect to have to do these things often with a 3rd/4th/5th/6th grader...

 

[ktgrok]

He could have working memory issues, those often show up in trouble copying things.