Hi, my name is Kathy. I just started homeschooling my 7 year old son in January. He has great handwriting but he absolutely will not write most of the time. He will participate orally, but then I tell him to put it on the paper and he will not. This is for math and every other subject that involves putting a pencil to paper. Today we are all frustrated. Does anyone else have a child that will not write anything? There has got to be some way to get him to write.
Might not be the route you want to go, but have you tried computer based curriculum? And make writing for just writing. (that sentence sounds extremely stupid LOL) Have you tried fun paper (stationary, diff colors or designs) fun pencils and fun pencil toppers, or some pencil grips (I loved those at his age) or maybe even a 'cool' pen? Maybe a shopping trip where he can pick some stuff out? That's really all I got LOL I have this problem some days, but not often so I don't have any great answer for you
You say he has great handwriting but won't "write" -you mean write an essay, a novel, a sentence...? Putting words on paper is a an extremely complicated process for the brain and at age 7 not that many kids are ready to do it like we think they should. In my opinion, we can sometimes expect our kids to do things that developmentally they are not ready to do. Even simple sentences are not simple for a 7 year old and if he participates orally now why are you making him also write it down? There is time enough when he is older to worry about his writing things down. Just my opinion. I would try to make it more fun than work at this age. Jane
My oldest son was like that. (He's in 7th grade now and still hates to put pencil to paper.) Try a dry erase board. We got a large one, but still small enough to hold in your lap. We did spelling tests on it before we switched to SpellingCity.com (which I recommend.) You can do math on the dry erase too. There's something about it that they rather write on there than paper, at least mine did. HTH
I second the dry erase board. YOu can order them from Rainbow resource that have lines on them; Also have him write, say one sentence a day on a particular topic for a few weeks. Then he can put them together in book form. My dd 8 hated to write till I bought those pages with extra space at the top for illustrations. Now she loves making her own stories. And make sure the lined paper you are using is wide enough. I used the extra wide for like Kindergarteners for a long time with my reluctant writer.
I agree with every one dry erase board, or some fun paper and pencil to write with. There is so many neat ideas for stationary out there, do something he likes. Sponge bob or something along that line, then get pencils to match. Good Luck.
