Writing help

[bunnyfungo]

Does anyone still come over here? I need help with writing curriculum or exercises or something. My second grader is struggling with complete sentences. My fourth grader just sort of intuitively picked up grammar rules from reading so this is kind of new territory. Right now we’re using Essentials in Writing. I’ve been happy with it so far but it doesn’t seem thorough enough for sentence construction. Like my kid knows what a subject and predicate are and can circle them in a sentence but when it comes to making sentences herself it’s just run on sentence after run on sentence or incomplete sentences. She just puts periods wherever she feels like and capital letters cease to exist 😅 So this is kind of a two part question. Is that age appropriate? Am I making a problem where there isn’t one? I’ve never had a second grader in public school so I honestly don’t know. And if it is a problem, do you have any suggestions for additional help in that area?

I should also mention that she does do a pretty good job of writing a complete sentence when asked as part of the assignment. So this is more of a creative writing issue. I feel weird trying to correct creative writing at this age though because I feel like just getting your thoughts down on paper at all is tough for a newly 8 year old. Thoughts? Opinions?

I’m tagging hawkward and Pistol just because I know at least you guys are still around on other boards.

[hawkward]

I have thoughts! I’m posting here now so that I can remember to come back after bedtime when I can form a complete thought without “hey mom!” interrupting.

[hawkward]

This is totally age appropriate and I wouldn’t worry about it for *at least* another year. DS1 has been a slow writer, and it only suddenly clicked for him in the last couple of years (he’s 11 now) that creative writing is an actual form of communication. That lagged way behind his verbal skills and his knowledge of writing mechanics.

Right now she’s just getting all these big thoughts out on paper that she may not have all the words she wants to express, etc. Like when a toddler learns to talk and is kind of word salading for a while because their brains are ahead of their mouths. Creative writing vs speaking vs technical writing are all different skills. It’s almost like how when you learn a foreign language, speaking to get by is completely different from conversational language.

I would keep up with the EIW for grammar and maybe introduce some Bravewriter-style partner writing for creative projects. For stories, she dictates, you write it down, and then edit it together.

[hawkward]

You can also do projects that build that skill without her having to go totally off script. Things like thank you notes or letters to a family member have a “form” with some room to add a little creativity as well.

[bunnyfungo]

Thank you, hawkward! I still get caught up in worrying if they are behind their peers. I know, I know. But I do still want them to be in the ballpark of their grade level in case we ever need to throw them back in school for some reason. It’s hard when I don’t know what grade level actually is though lol. I will release it for now and just keep plugging along with the curriculum and let creative writing be a thing she does for fun. Grammar or not, she wrote a whole book of short stories that she illustrated too. By herself. Because she wanted to, not because I told her to. I wish my 4th grader did that!

[hawkward]

Oh I totally get it. It’s hard! DS2’s reading is my insecure area. We try to let them grow at their own pace but we also want them to be close enough to grade level to go back to public school if needed.

[Pistol]

We're struggling with this too. I'm looking at grammar galaxy for next year. I need to work with them on writing prompts more but I haven't found anything I like for that yet. I need to peruse TPT to see if I see anything I like there. My kids despise writing so I'm going to start them on learning to type and work on writing assignments with typing to see if there's less resistance that way.

[Pistol]

Mar 18, 2022 17:42:14 GMT -6 bunnyfungo said:

Thank you, hawkward! I still get caught up in worrying if they are behind their peers. I know, I know. But I do still want them to be in the ballpark of their grade level in case we ever need to throw them back in school for some reason. It’s hard when I don’t know what grade level actually is though lol. I will release it for now and just keep plugging along with the curriculum and let creative writing be a thing she does for fun. Grammar or not, she wrote a whole book of short stories that she illustrated too. By herself. Because she wanted to, not because I told her to. I wish my 4th grader did that!

I struggle with worrying about mine being behind too. It doesn't help that I feel like people are constantly quizzing them on what they know when they sure as hell didn't do that when they were going to regular school! I do love our dermatologist though. He knew we were going on vacation and he knows we homeschool so when he was making small talk with C today he just asked if we had our own spring break or if I made them do school on vacation too and when C said spring break he was like alright that's cool!

[Pistol]

I also kinda pick my brothers girlfriend's brain from time to time too. Like she told me third grade is when they start to shift from learn to read to read to learn typically so I was like well damn we need to work on that then. I think I have the boys pretty well caught up or at least close to it now. And I felt reassured when my friend who is a retired elementary school teacher (she retired maybe 6 or 7 years ago) told me that when she was teaching kids my boys' age that they only did history a couple times a month and same with science because the other stuff took priority and sometimes there just wasn't time for everything. Because with me working now there are definitely weeks I don't get to either history or science. Last year I did those twice a week!

[bunnyfungo]

Mar 18, 2022 21:20:10 GMT -6 Pistol said:

Mar 18, 2022 17:42:14 GMT -6 bunnyfungo said:

Thank you, hawkward! I still get caught up in worrying if they are behind their peers. I know, I know. But I do still want them to be in the ballpark of their grade level in case we ever need to throw them back in school for some reason. It’s hard when I don’t know what grade level actually is though lol. I will release it for now and just keep plugging along with the curriculum and let creative writing be a thing she does for fun. Grammar or not, she wrote a whole book of short stories that she illustrated too. By herself. Because she wanted to, not because I told her to. I wish my 4th grader did that!

I struggle with worrying about mine being behind too. It doesn't help that I feel like people are constantly quizzing them on what they know when they sure as hell didn't do that when they were going to regular school! I do love our dermatologist though. He knew we were going on vacation and he knows we homeschool so when he was making small talk with C today he just asked if we had our own spring break or if I made them do school on vacation too and when C said spring break he was like alright that's cool!

Ugh. Yes. The quizzing. I feel like that show “Are you smarter than a fourth grader” proved that half of what you learn in school is not retained as an adult. And that’s fine. In this day and age I feel like it’s more important to teach my kids how to find the information for themselves than it is to make them memorize the presidents in order or whatever. Somehow nobody ever quizzes my space loving kid on her actual interest though. She can tell me so many obscure science facts because it actually interests her.

[Pistol]

Mar 18, 2022 21:26:53 GMT -6 bunnyfungo said:

Mar 18, 2022 21:20:10 GMT -6 Pistol said:

I struggle with worrying about mine being behind too. It doesn't help that I feel like people are constantly quizzing them on what they know when they sure as hell didn't do that when they were going to regular school! I do love our dermatologist though. He knew we were going on vacation and he knows we homeschool so when he was making small talk with C today he just asked if we had our own spring break or if I made them do school on vacation too and when C said spring break he was like alright that's cool!

Ugh. Yes. The quizzing. I feel like that show “Are you smarter than a fourth grader” proved that half of what you learn in school is not retained as an adult. And that’s fine. In this day and age I feel like it’s more important to teach my kids how to find the information for themselves than it is to make them memorize the presidents in order or whatever. Somehow nobody ever quizzes my space loving kid on her actual interest though. She can tell me so many obscure science facts because it actually interests her.

Yes! When they start the quizing I loop it around to math, chuckle when C rolls his eyes and asks for a hard one because they give him something simple like 23+11 so then I toss out 3x12 or something and watch their eyes bulge when he gets it after a brief pause. Or with R I will have him start on something crazy like biomimicry which really gets him going and then you see the quizzer's eyes glaze over or they start to Google as he's talking. Fuck em. If they want to try to see if my kids are smart enough I will let them show off and make the person feel dumb.

[oceanblue]

This sounds similar to my second grader and I think it’s age appropriate. She has no issues writing complete sentences during lessons but when she’s doing creative writing on her structure gets away from her. She will also add the random punctuation but instead of periods she just randomly pops in commas everywhere.

I once read something about how kids can comprehend text at a higher level when it’s read to them vs. their brain also having to do the work to process the decoding. I’ve been thinking of creative writing kind of along those lines where it’s enough work for them to process the ideas flowing from their brains and actually writing it. Adding proper sentence structure to the mix is more developmentally advanced and will hopefully come once those other skills are more habitual. At this point I’m happy my kid is taking it upon herself to put ideas on paper and writing books so I’ve been pretty hands off with it.

I do want to start some kind of writing program soon though. We do multiple language arts programs but the writing element has been lacking in all of them. I just ordered some Evan Moore workbooks called Writing a Super Sentence and Daily 6-Trait Writing. They looked simple so I’m hoping they’ll be easy to add into our day and at least give us some sort of starting off point.

[oceanblue]

Mar 18, 2022 21:24:56 GMT -6 Pistol said:

I also kinda pick my brothers girlfriend's brain from time to time too. Like she told me third grade is when they start to shift from learn to read to read to learn typically so I was like well damn we need to work on that then. I think I have the boys pretty well caught up or at least close to it now. And I felt reassured when my friend who is a retired elementary school teacher (she retired maybe 6 or 7 years ago) told me that when she was teaching kids my boys' age that they only did history a couple times a month and same with science because the other stuff took priority and sometimes there just wasn't time for everything. Because with me working now there are definitely weeks I don't get to either history or science. Last year I did those twice a week!

I was chatting with a retired elementary teacher in a waiting room the other day and she basically told me the same thing. She said as long as they can do math and read well the rest will come. It me feel better about my inconsistency in some of the other subjects.

[oceanblue]

Also, sorry to come in and spam this thread days later lol but I’m right there with you all on worrying about my kids being on pace with their peers. One of the things I like about homeschooling is you can go at each child’s individual pace whether that’s working ahead or working slower. But I always worry about them being able to integrate into the school system in the future if needed. I’m trying to release it but it’s easier said than done.

[bunnyfungo]

Mar 24, 2022 18:41:45 GMT -6 oceanblue said:

Also, sorry to come in and spam this thread days later lol but I’m right there with you all on worrying about my kids being on pace with their peers. One of the things I like about homeschooling is you can go at each child’s individual pace whether that’s working ahead or working slower. But I always worry about them being able to integrate into the school system in the future if needed. I’m trying to release it but it’s easier said than done.

Don’t worry about coming in late. I’m just glad there are still people around that notice the board has new activity. It’s good to know that your second grader is on the same path as mine. Truly. It makes me feel like we are right where we need to be and gets rid of some of that pressure I was putting on myself.