Free Writing Help

My daughter is also in 1st.  She likes to write in journals and write notes to friends for play.  Her words are very much sounded out phonetically with lots of misspellings (our cat Lucy is Loosee) but she improves as we learn more phonics rules.  She is expected to spell correctly when she is doing her phonics work but that always applies to her lessons.  As for her free writing time, we usually read a picture book (like Uncommon Traveler for Mod 1) and then I ask her to describe her pretend trip to Africa.  I want her to include as much as she likes so I write while she dictates.  I do not correct her grammer as I write either though this is less and less an issue as she learns more as well.  It is neat to see how much she is improving.  My 4 year old’s dictations are far more humorous with incorrect grammer but they show her personality and I love reading them to my husband when he gets home so we can have a good laugh.  I am starting to trust more and more Charlotte’s methods and it is very hard for me to wait on formal spelling and grammer, especially as homeschool friends are not, but I see such improvement that I feel her methods are working better than I expected.