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how to help a 4th grader to improve in writing


whangty
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Would appreciate any tips or suggestions as to how I could help my 4th grade son to improve in writing.  

He has been an advanced student thus far -- ie. gifted program, top 1% on several standard tests like Cogat, ITBS, etc.   However,  when he began to practice for the writing portion (short essay to a prompt) of the SSAT, I started to notice that his writing could use a lot of improvement!   His sentences are mostly very brief, lacking details, and do not connect to one another.   For practice, I tried to have him write about random topics, but the result has been similar.   It seems that writing is an uncomfortable practice for him and indeed he does not write much when asked.  

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  

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Writing is like any other skill and needs to be built on a solid foundation of basic skills. Essays for a 4th grader lacking a strong foundation (and for most students even with an excellent foundation) is expecting too much.  4th graders are typically on a factual report/summation level, not essay.  Strong sentences are 1 skill. Developing a paragraph is another. Writing multiple paragraphs that work together is yet another. Developing a topic paragraph that controls an entire paper is a more advanced skill, etc. Meeting them at their level and helping them master lower level skills first will lead to easier progression to more advanced skills.

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^ That.

Treasured Conversations is a really great program to work on those skills in a nice, orderly way, with each skill stacking on top of the others to build a solid foundation.  After going through it my 9yo can now outline, organize his thoughts, write a topic sentence, and create a paper that flows much better than his previous work - and he enjoyed many of the lessons.

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On 10/22/2019 at 5:14 AM, 8FillTheHeart said:

Writing is like any other skill and needs to be built on a solid foundation of basic skills. Essays for a 4th grader lacking a strong foundation (and for most students even with an excellent foundation) is expecting too much.  4th graders are typically on a factual report/summation level, not essay.  Strong sentences are 1 skill. Developing a paragraph is another. Writing multiple paragraphs that work together is yet another. Developing a topic paragraph that controls an entire paper is a more advanced skill, etc. Meeting them at their level and helping them master lower level skills first will lead to easier progression to more advanced skills.

Great points.   However, my older son in 6th grade seemed to have had much easier time with essays and writing in general when he was in 4th grade.   I suppose every kid is different.  I thought kid's writing can and does improve depending on how much they read.   What do you think about this?   My older son was and remains a voracious reader; my second son, less so.  

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4 hours ago, whangty said:

Great points.   However, my older son in 6th grade seemed to have had much easier time with essays and writing in general when he was in 4th grade.   I suppose every kid is different.  I thought kid's writing can and does improve depending on how much they read.   What do you think about this?   My older son was and remains a voracious reader; my second son, less so.  

Being a reader has not improved my kids beyond their natural abilities whereas with direct instruction they have acquired the necessary skills to improve and progress to higher levels of expression.

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20 hours ago, whangty said:

Great points.   However, my older son in 6th grade seemed to have had much easier time with essays and writing in general when he was in 4th grade.   I suppose every kid is different.  I thought kid's writing can and does improve depending on how much they read.   What do you think about this?   My older son was and remains a voracious reader; my second son, less so.  


Reading and reading for information are different, even if that information is how to construct written thoughts.  Our main writing program is integrated into reading, English Lessons Through Literature, but a huge part of it is learning WITH the literature and breaking it down:
-copying specific passages.
-using passages to dissect the grammar.
-learning how to rewrite something by adding or changing words/dialogue/antonyms/synonyms

It's actively using the work as a model, not passively trying to absorb the author's techniques.  I have voracious readers, but they needed specific examples of how and why things worked and the chance to play around with it themselves.

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I always found writing to be fairly easy, and I assumed that my kids, advanced in several subjects, would be the same.  Older is a voracious reader of all sorts of things, fiction and nonfiction.  But, writing was a challenge.  I was fine with a kid who didn't do creative writing very well, since this kid, like my husband and I, is STEM-oriented.  But, it wasn't until somewhere in 7th grade  that we started getting decent reports instead of brain-dumps of facts.  For us, the Michael Clay Thompson language arts series has helped, along with the occasional co-op writing class so that kiddo could see that this wasn't some weird hang-up of mine.  For all of middle school, I have also had test-free history.  I had no concerns about this particular kid's fact knowledge, so instead, we do a variety of writing assignments.  Sometimes I'll say 'You have 1 hour to write 3 paragraphs about topic X' which prevents staring at the screen without writing, and other times he'll do a 1 page summary written over a few days, or a bigger production that he writes over a week.  In the beginning, I'd start by doing an 'oral outline' - What is the main point?  What ideas will support that?  Do we do one per paragraph?  At this point, in 8th grade, I've seen dramatic improvements.  We are now working on removing wordiness from sentences, but the last 2-page-single-spaced report had a thesis and each paragraph had one topic with supporting details, so I'm pleased.  

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On 10/25/2019 at 9:46 AM, ClemsonDana said:

I always found writing to be fairly easy, and I assumed that my kids, advanced in several subjects, would be the same.  Older is a voracious reader of all sorts of things, fiction and nonfiction.  But, writing was a challenge.  I was fine with a kid who didn't do creative writing very well, since this kid, like my husband and I, is STEM-oriented.  But, it wasn't until somewhere in 7th grade  that we started getting decent reports instead of brain-dumps of facts.  For us, the Michael Clay Thompson language arts series has helped, along with the occasional co-op writing class so that kiddo could see that this wasn't some weird hang-up of mine.  For all of middle school, I have also had test-free history.  I had no concerns about this particular kid's fact knowledge, so instead, we do a variety of writing assignments.  Sometimes I'll say 'You have 1 hour to write 3 paragraphs about topic X' which prevents staring at the screen without writing, and other times he'll do a 1 page summary written over a few days, or a bigger production that he writes over a week.  In the beginning, I'd start by doing an 'oral outline' - What is the main point?  What ideas will support that?  Do we do one per paragraph?  At this point, in 8th grade, I've seen dramatic improvements.  We are now working on removing wordiness from sentences, but the last 2-page-single-spaced report had a thesis and each paragraph had one topic with supporting details, so I'm pleased.  

Thank you so much for sharing this, which I find it particularly helpful as it is based on a real experience.   The main takeaways for me are: improvement in writing takes practice (just like anything) and it make take a while.   My kids too are STEM-oriented, esp. the older one.   However, I genuinely have been surprised by the level of writing skills in my second son, esp. in relation to his other skills in other areas like math, reading comprehension, vocabulary, etc.   I have relied on his school education thus far, but it seems that just like math I need to work with him at home on his writing as well.   Thank you again!

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Is he doing any sort of outlining or organizing of his thoughts or just going straight off the top? In my experience, even many advanced students can struggle with their writing, even as far as high school. Part of me wonders if random topics are the best approach - you'll have to do that some of course - but maybe a topic he knows something about would help him to understand how to string the thoughts together better. 

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On 10/30/2019 at 5:11 PM, Eatysleepy said:

Is he doing any sort of outlining or organizing of his thoughts or just going straight off the top? In my experience, even many advanced students can struggle with their writing, even as far as high school. Part of me wonders if random topics are the best approach - you'll have to do that some of course - but maybe a topic he knows something about would help him to understand how to string the thoughts together better. 

Great question and point.   I don't think he is doing much of organizing or outlining in his writing.   It just seems that the act of writing just does not seem that natural to him.   I have downloaded the treasured conversations and have been meaning to get started.   I have been trying to tell him that writing is simply writing down one's thoughts and words.   He does speak well and cohesively.   Thx. for your response.  

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This is not a hugely commonly used resource, but you might want to look at Outling by Remedia Publications. It focuses just on the skill of outlining and writing from an outline. https://www.rempub.com/outlining

Another pretty good resource is the Paragraphs series (4 books) by EPS. http://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/literacy/grammar-writing/the-paragraph-book/about-the-program

I am specfically making recommendations that I think are doable in an afterschooling situation. Both of these are aimed at working with struggling middle school students, but I think they are pretty good for using with younger students for the purposes of explicit instruction to improve writing in reasonable chunks without being overwhelming. 

I would suggest ordering from Rainbow Resource Center for the best pricing.

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7 hours ago, calbear said:

This is not a hugely commonly used resource, but you might want to look at Outling by Remedia Publications. It focuses just on the skill of outlining and writing from an outline. https://www.rempub.com/outlining

Another pretty good resource is the Paragraphs series (4 books) by EPS. http://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/literacy/grammar-writing/the-paragraph-book/about-the-program

I am specfically making recommendations that I think are doable in an afterschooling situation. Both of these are aimed at working with struggling middle school students, but I think they are pretty good for using with younger students for the purposes of explicit instruction to improve writing in reasonable chunks without being overwhelming. 

I would suggest ordering from Rainbow Resource Center for the best pricing.

Thank you for these suggestions.   I will check them out!

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