I wasn't quite sure how to title this, but basically what's going on is that my 12 y.o. son aces his spelling tests, does well with his grammar assignments, even scores really great on his standardized tests. But when he sits down to write something, it is like he forgets everything he knows! He is doing the Purple level of LLATL this year...it's a year behind where he "should" be, but when I looked over the assessments, this seemed like the right level to start him on. This is the first year since we started HSing him in 3rd grade that we've used an actual LA curriculum. Before, we used various grammar workbooks, lessons found online, etc. One area we really butted heads was over writing, and I confess that because of that, I've been too lax in allowing him to do as little writing as possible. He still struggles to write a coherent paragraph, much less a decent one-page report. Today he had to write a 5-sentence paragraph about an explorer. There were misspelled words, misused words, missing commas, half a dozen spelling errors, two sentence fragments and one huge run-on sentence. I wanted to cry when I saw it. I had to go nurse the baby and put him down for a nap, and the whole time I sat there praying because I was so frustrated and felt like I didn't know how to help him write better. I ended up sitting down with him and we went over it sentence by sentence, with me asking/prompting him to find the corrections he needed to make. What was ironic (or annoying!) was that for the spelling corrections, he spelled the word correctly out loud the first time I asked him! So I'm like, if you know how to spell it, why didn't you write it that way to begin with??? I guess it's my fault in that I've been bad about not making him write that much, just to avoid the battles. I also bought Writing Strands but have not made time for it this year. Anyone see a similar gap between what you know your child knows, and what they produce when writing? Any tips on how to fix it? Thanks!
Just an idea: Next time he hands you a writing assignment to look at, hand it back and give him a colored pen to find the errors. Try to teach him how to proof read. On the first pass he may be just trying to get ideas out, but the second pass needs to clean up the errors. Some kids hate proof reading, but it's an important skill to teach. (you may have to make it part of the assignment in order to get him to do it though). Also if he is really very good at spelling, you could have a rule that you won't mark an assignment with spelling errors. If you see one, just stop reading and hand it back to him. But that's only if he is very good at spelling, but not spending the time to do it. I am not there yet with my kids, but I was a horrible proof reader in school, so I know the importance of it, even when you don't like doing it.
Do you think it's being lazy, or he really doesn't know how to apply what he's learned? If it's laziness, copying it over (and over and over!) will help. I personally like Mykidrock's approach.
That's the hard part: knowing whether he really can't do it, or if he's just being lazy. He acts like making him write is the most overwhelming thing on the planet. I do like the suggestion to teach him to proofread. He's had some experience with that when we do the dictation exercises in LLATL...he has to go back and self-correct any mistakes he made. I told him yesterday that it's OK to use the first draft to get your thoughts down on paper (or on the computer), but that you never, ever turn in a first draft. You have to read it to make sure it makes sense, proofread, etc. That's the point when he starts getting all riled up, every time we write. It's just really hard to tell if it's laziness, or he just plain hates doing it, or what. I guess I need to bite the bullet and just start making writing an everyday event. Maybe doing it more will help?
If he just plain hates doing it, then you would treat it the same as laziness. He doesn't LIKE to do it, so he's NOT GOING to do it. And all you can do is emphasize that yes, he IS going to do it, same as if he were being lazy. If it's just not clicking, then about all you can do is to do the proof-reading WITH him, and make the corrections. Then have him copy it over, perhaps on the computer. Faythe still has spelling issues! I would have her write it one day, then I would circle the misspelled words and she would have to figure out the correct spelling the second day. I would go over this, and then the third day she would copy it onto the computer. (If I had her copy it in writing, she would make all kinds of NEW spelling mistakes!!!)
My son hates writing also. I hated it when I was in school. I guess it's an epidemic! I asked my son to write a paragraph on the beginning of the Vietnam War and this is the type of writing I got: President Johnson wanted the U.S. to get involved with the war. So did President Nixon. There was another sentence, but I don't have it here with me. What?! That is the beginning of the Vietnam War? I was quite upset. Then I made him write two paragraphs (same topic) and I helped him start it. It was a rough draft and it was rough, but that is OK. I told him that we would look it over and edit it. He didn't understand why I was asking him to change things. I assured him that what he had done was good, but that everyone has to edit and change things when they write. That is just one step to writing. He seemed to get the idea that I wasn't telling him that he didn't do a good job, but that I was showing him just another step in the process.
I student taught 6th grade. My Langauge Arts class contained the top LA students in the three classes. I gave them a writing assignement, and then I went to work with my red pens. Before I returned them, I explained VERY CARFULLY that ALL the papers were covered with red marks. This did NOT mean they did poorly!!! It meant I made lots of comments and asked lots of questions and made suggestions. Yes, I did mark grammar and spelling, too. But I also praised a well-written phrase at the same time! Even so, the kids still had a hard time adjusting to my way of doing it! One mom even took her child aside and pointed out all the POSITIVE comments I had written on the paper just to show the red didn't mean BAD JOB!
I have an eighth grade girl that I've been teaching for five years now. We've used Daily Grams four years, and CLE for LA. She usually makes 100 on her spelling tests, and usually makes As or high Bs in the grammar, and was acing the DG exercises every day. She's scored Post High School on her annual achievement tests in the language area. So I thought this year it was time to change the DG (she's done through the 7th grade one) and use Editor in Chief instead. I guess I should have gotten the A1, but I got the B1 because it's marked for 6th-8th grade (I think that's it). She's bombed every exercise. She just canNOT proofread! She'd rather take a beating than write anything from research or from her own head! She acts like I've asked her to perform brain surgery on herself or something! Right now she's stalled out on a writing assignment that involves writing some kind of exposition, and she chose "How to Make Ice Cream" which is one of the suggestions in the book. Her outline was very sketchy, and her rough draft left out the eggs AND the cream (although she did include the regular milk). She also wrote about adding the ice and salt -- but what she wrote sounded like you add this IN the freezer canister with the ingredients, and she looked totally puzzled when I called her on it. I had to send her back for "more research" -- I may have to get her to change topics altogether -- but I'll consider us lucky to get a finished product out of her by the end of the week ... and this is all that's left to do in the unit besides the Unit Test. Our next unit involves a novel study, which of course is read this and write about it, read this and think and write, read this and write, etc. We'll be lucky if we finish this one in the twelve weeks we have left of school!
My son also hates writing. After reading several books on what to expect from your child in regards to writing, I found that I was expecting too much. Now I try to bring only two or three things to his attention. I do have a very clear outline of what I expect of him as in indent the first word of each paragraph, no contractions, must have a title properly capitalized, etc. This helps but.......there is still lots of room for improvement. You might want to purchase an editing book. We liked, I liked and my son put up with, The Great Editing Adventure Series. On each page I told him how many errors he had to find. That was sort of fun for him. Another thing I did in the past was to write/type one of the rewrites for him if he made the corrections on the paper. This way he did not always have to rewrite every paper two to three times. Most importantly is that I need to praise him for the good and keep the negative commits to a minimum. His paper does not have to be perfect at this time in his life.
