How much writing for a 3rd grade boy?

[ELaurie]

Let me preface my question by saying that ds 9 is a reluctant writer. We have been working hard to re mediate some visual processing issues, and he has made great progress this year.

According to the suggested guidelines in TWTM, a third grader should be able to:

1) Read books about the late renaissance /early modern period independently and make a narration page without the intermediate step of narration / dictation. This should be done twice a week, and filed in the reading section of his / her language arts notebook, and

2) Read or listen to chapters in SOTW 3 and make a narration page for his / her history notebook.

Ds 9 is able to do the narrations orally, and I have been dictating one sentence from his narrations in WWE 2 for him to write each week.

This week, he did a narration in FLL 3 which I wrote out and dictated to him; it was several sentences long and he managed this step well.

Now I'm wondering about how to help him make the transition to writing narrations independently.

I'd welcome suggestions about how to do this, as well as feedback about what other 3rd grade boys are doing.

Thank you :001_smile:

[Julieofsardis]

This is a post I saved from Susan back in 2002 -- Hopefully you will find some helpful nuggets. I would also consider purchasing the WWE textbook. It will walk you through slowly ramping your child up to an acceptable level.

Begin post============================================== =

"Strategy for Slow Writers" plan"
In the first place, I would NOT do spelling and grammar on the same day; I'd alternate. So every day do reading, a writing assignment, and EITHER grammar OR spelling.
In the second place, don't do any of those A Beka writing assignments. A nine-year-old who's struggling should be writing for 20-30 minutes per day for one of his school subjects (history, science, or literature -- this writing assignment should be a brief summary of something that he's read, and by brief I mean whatever takes him 20-30 minutes to write -- three sentences in 20 minutes is NOT unusual for a nine year old boy). He should also be taking dictation (again, two sentences is fine) from you at least twice a week. If he's a reluctant writer, do this dictation twice a week in place of writing out those summaries, and dictate FROM his history, or literature, or science. So three days a week he might write a summary (which you help him compose orally before he writes), and two days a week he might do narration.
Now you're getting things under control: Every day he is doing TWO writing-intensive assignments, either
dictation plus grammar
OR
dictation plus spelling
OR
a summary plus spelling
OR
a summary plus grammar
etc.
When you can do it without sending your son into hysterics, add a "formal writing program" 1-2 days per week. This helps you be certain that you are covering friendly letters, using adjectives, etc., etc., etc.
This is the "Nibbled to death by ducks" method of teaching boys to write: You do it EVERY DAY for a short period and yes, eventually they do GET it. (Have you ever heard my "All writing programs were designed for girls" tirade?")
As far as "getting through" the grammar books: Honestly, I wouldn't worry about this. Do 1-2 pages every day that you do grammar. When you finish the book, move on to the next one. Do NOT worry about grade level. If you get through the tenth-grade grammar book by twelfth grade, you've gone through the entire series; the last two years are a review. But in any case you're likely to find that he'll speed up as time goes on.

[ELaurie]

That is helpful :001_smile:

[Colleen in NS]

Let me preface my question by saying that ds 9 is a reluctant writer. We have been working hard to re mediate some visual processing issues, and he has made great progress this year.

According to the suggested guidelines in TWTM, a third grader should be able to:

1) Read books about the late renaissance /early modern period independently and make a narration page without the intermediate step of narration / dictation. This should be done twice a week, and filed in the reading section of his / her language arts notebook, and

2) Read or listen to chapters in SOTW 3 and make a narration page for his / her history notebook.

Ds 9 is able to do the narrations orally, and I have been dictating one sentence from his narrations in WWE 2 for him to write each week.

This week, he did a narration in FLL 3 which I wrote out and dictated to him; it was several sentences long and he managed this step well.

Now I'm wondering about how to help him make the transition to writing narrations independently.

I'd welcome suggestions about how to do this, as well as feedback about what other 3rd grade boys are doing.

Thank you :001_smile:

Hi! I see you are using WWE. WWE will teach him how to make the transition to writing his narrations independently.

If I had WWE when my struggling-writer-ds was in 1st-4th grade, I wouldn't have worried half as much about all the writing WTM talks about - there was no way my son could do all that writing, and I tried and tried. Even now, he only writes a paragraph at a time for a narration, not the two or three paragraphs talked about somewhere in WTM grammar stage. But they are well thought out paragraphs, thanks to the skim through with WWE last year. Reading WWE was a huge relief to me, because my impression is that WWE is meant to tie all that writing together into a simple plan to get kids writing their own decent narrations by the end of level 4. And those are only 3 to 4 sentences long. And so, with dd who is using WWE 2 and in grammar stage, I don't have her do half of the writing I tried to do with ds - we just use WWE as the spine, and do WWE writings from history, science, and lit. without worrying about following all those other history/science/lit. writing instructions in WTM. I think WWE simplifies all the writing instruction in WTM grammar stage.

[ELaurie]

Thank you Colleen! You've identified what is at the crux of my struggle - I was concerned that the writing he is doing in WWE isn't enough. I can't wait until the revised version of TWTM is available - I anticipate that SWB has clarified a lot of these issues in the revised version.

[Colleen in NS]

Thank you Colleen! You've identified what is at the crux of my struggle - I was concerned that the writing he is doing in WWE isn't enough. I can't wait until the revised version of TWTM is available - I anticipate that SWB has clarified a lot of these issues in the revised version.

I can't wait til that conference and all the writing workshops - I think they'll clear up a lot of things for me. I keep telling myself I need to write a list of questions to take with me. :D

After listening to Writing Without Fear and reading WWE and reading lots of writing posts here on the boards, I wonder if in WTM, the history writing that is laid out is meant to be for the ideal history program, the science writing that is laid out is meant to be for the ideal science program, same with lit., same with art appreciation, same with music appreciation (in logic and rhetoric stages).

After reading WWE, I lean more towards teaching my kids basic writing skills every day with some sort of pattern (copywork-moving-towards-dictation, and narration-being-able-to-summarize-important-details), and folding reading from history/science/lit./artist & composer biographies into the daily writing lessons, instead of trying to cram 6 - 8 writing assignments from the ideal programs into the week.

And with ds in 5th grade now, and finally being able to write a one paragraph narration of a long passage, and learning new skills like outlining, dissecting a lit. book, paragraph skills via R&S, and editing his paragraph, I've changed around the writing each week. He does a science narration each week, either a history or lit. narration, a history outline, a science outline, and one dictation a week. That equals 5 short, daily assignments a week. With these new skills, I could not stuff more writing into the week at this point, I don't think. When he masters typing and when we get into multilevel outlining and then rewriting from outlines, it'll open up new avenues!:D But he is learning to think clearly about his writing, and learning where to find info., and that's what I care about. We just use the content areas to provide fodder for writing (and thus, he learns the content anyway)

This quote from WTM is starting to sink in for me (it's from the chapter about using WTM without losing your own mind): "We've explained the general philosophy that governs each part of the curriculum, but our specific schedules.....are just illustrations of how to put this philosophy in practice." (bolded emphasis mine) It's almost like they write up the philosophy of teaching science (observe/experiment/read/write/sketch), the philosophy of teaching history (read/write/draw/project/timeline), the philosophy of teaching lit. (read/discuss/write/timeline), art apprec. (observe/read/write/timeline), music apprec.(listen/read/write/timeline), and then put a magnifying glass on each philosophy to tell you how to lay out the ideal program for each area. But if I can just extract the philosophy and basic methods for each part of the curriculum, I can construct my own program that works for my kids and family life, and still gets the skills taught well. Reading and writing are the major components of each, but some of the writing *skills* overlap - so I ask myself, why not pare it down to one narration from each content area per week, instead of two, while ds was learning to get his thoughts into words and words onto paper? Or now while he is learning to type/construct paragraphs/edit paragraphs/write a simple lit. analysis? I've read over and over here on the boards about that, but I'm starting to "get" it now (a little, anyway!).

Sorry this is so long - your post illustrated the struggles I've gone through (and continue to go through) about teaching writing and wanting to do the best job at it, and desperately needing WTM to help me do it right!:D So I thought I'd throw my thoughts out there.

[Emmy]

Colleen - I really appreciate your post; you gave me some good things to think about.

[ELaurie]

Your post really does provide a helpful perspective :001_smile:

[moki4]

yes, very helpful.
You put my thoughts into words.
I need to look at WWE.:)

[Julie in MN]

Does your son type? My son has always produced 10x as much when typing as compared to using a pencil.
Julie

[ELaurie]

He's learning, but the process of putting his thoughts down on paper (or typing them) is still laborious for him. Spelling is difficult, and he hasn't internalized a lot of the rules about capitalization, punctuation, etc. (not that I would require this to be done perfectly at his age). I plan for him to work on this a bit over the summer using some fun typing games or a typing program for kids, so that perhaps he can type some of his work next year.

[Colleen in NS]

Colleen - I really appreciate your post; you gave me some good things to think about.

Your post really does provide a helpful perspective :001_smile:

yes, very helpful.
You put my thoughts into words.
I need to look at WWE.:)

You're welcome. Glad something was helpful.:)

[samba2nite]

Thank you thank you.... it is so nice to know we are not alone. My 8 year old son would rather have a root canal then write anything. I feel like we are working at a three year olds level. I know all things will happen with time, but some days it just gets the best of me. I think I will print out this post to read and reread.

Samba

[ELaurie]

It will get better - hang in there :001_smile:Thank you thank you.... it is so nice to know we are not alone. My 8 year old son would rather have a root canal then write anything. I feel like we are working at a three year olds level. I know all things will happen with time, but some days it just gets the best of me. I think I will print out this post to read and reread.

Samba

[plimsoll]

I think three things changed my son from being a reluctant writer to doing very well:

1) Doing all his writing on the computer (outlines, adjective brainstorming, etc. are still done on paper).

2) Getting older -- writing didn't start to "click" for him until 4th grade.

3) Using imitation-based programs: Classical Writing Aesop and IEW.