Letter Writing - help!

[Debra in CO]

Okay, my 5th grader is writing a letter to a friend. The letter is terrible. Terrible. At least his spelling is half decent.

So two questions -

First, do I just let him go ahead and mail this letter even though it is so non-sensical?

Second - if I work with him to revise it (or if I let it go and want to do something to teach him for future letters) does anyone know of something reasonably straight-forward that I can use to teach him what a letter ought to look like?

If I should be working with this current letter, obviously, it would need to be something I can get online.


Thanks!

Debra
Mom of five, ages 1-10

[Lolly]

I'd just let it go. Part of letter writing is just the fun of getting something in the mail.

Next question, is this for school or just for fun? If it is for school, you can talk to her before she begins her next letter. See if you can't come up with a game plan for what will be included. If it is for fun, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[Debra in CO]

thanks for this!

That's pretty much what I decided. It's a letter to a friend, and probably not a big deal. It's just that I was asked to read it, and asked what I thought... ugh...

I'm getting FLL3 for my 3rd grader - I think I'll make the 5th grader work through the letter writing section of that. Maybe the next letter will be coherent!

Debra
Mom to five, ages 1-10

[MaryM]

Agreeing with Lolly. No need to discourage letter writing which is almost a lost art anyway!

Mary

[nitascool]

"40 Rubrics & Checklists: to assess reading and Writing" by Scholastic (for grades 3-6) has a very good section about letter writing. It shows the teacher how to teach students to write a letter.

There is a Planning Form to fill out (you have to photo copy it). It has a Checklist that the student marks (yes or no) which includes 10 questions. There is also one for business letters and a Rubric to help the teacher grade the letter. I got it at my local library today. The price tag says that it is $14.95.

[Debra in CO]

Mary - that's it exactly! I don't want to discourage him... but wow, I have no idea how anybody who doesn't have him right there explaining it is going to make any sense out of what he wrote.

He does a decent job with other writing assignments. This was just random and confusing.

Anyway, I'm going to smile and say nothing critical about his future letters, but we *are* going to work letter writing into school in a low-key way.

Thanks for the thoughts :)

Debra

[Debra in CO]

Thanks - I'll look for that!

Debra