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Reluctant Writer
- This topic has 9 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 3 months ago by
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I have been following CM’s methods since K, and my dyslexic almost-12 yr old son has always been fantastic with narration, but it has never translated to being good at writing. I feel like I need a really specific, spelled out for me curriculum for writing as this really isn’t a great position that we’re in, especially with him wanting to attend traditional school in a year (ie I don’t have till college for this to work itself out in an organic way). Clearly, what we’ve been doing (exposure to well written books and narration) isn’t working for him, and I need something else! For example, if I ask him to write 3 paragraphs with a prompt, I will get 3 sentences, two of which aren’t complete sentences, and really no content at all. He is very smart and articulate, but there is some kind of major disconnect when it comes to writing. I was looking at Brave Writer’s The Writer’s Jungle, but I don’t know if that’s spelled out enough for ME. I don’t want to read about how else to teach him, I need a script and specific assignments! Any ideas? I should add, we have never done dictation as his spelling is atrocious and his dysgraphia makes anything other than limited copywork very discouraging.
Writers in Residence looks interesting. Jump In is another option.
My oldest son liked Writing Strands, but none of my others did.
Show him some samples and see what he prefers.
His dysgraphia will make it harder for him to express his ideas through writing. Has he tried typing or dictating his thoughts to you?
Does he type? It’s just a thought, but I know that my son’s writing improved drastically when he could type his narrations instead of writing them down with a pencil.
Bravewriter also offers programs to follow, like Jot It Down.
http://www.bravewriter.com/getting-started-with-brave-writer
We liked Writing Tales, which includes grammar, spelling, etc.
If you want a script – and specific assignments – I encourage you (strongly!) to consider Writing With Skill by Susan Wise Bauer. While there was a time in my homeschooling journey when I was strongly opposed to all things “classical education”, two years ago I was in the same position as you with my 12 year old. It was a challenging time! We had been reading aloud, enjoying literature and history studies (both read aloud and silent reading), and enjoying beautiful oral narrations for years, but transitioning to narrations in written form was complete frustration. After much soul searching, I decided I needed to take a chance on something different. We put aside attempts at written narrations from our literature and history readings and decided to go with a more structured curriculum. After several hit-and-miss on a few other curriculum (usually because assignments were not detailed enough and/or because I felt lost about exactly how to help, direct, encourage, motivate and push my child more in the area of writing) we found Writing With Skill. WWS (Level one) took us to a whole new place. Writing became the subject where my son felt interested and motivated. This was especially the case once we got about halfway through the program. He began to feel smart and empowered – and really began to apply himself. The program strikes a good balance between student led and teacher led. Having both a student workbook and the instructor book is essential.
As always, not every curriculum works for every family. But when I read your post about wanting specific assignments and a teacher script… I encourage you at least to check it out.
Good luck to you!
A.
Thank you,Angelina, I will look into it! Yes, I need more help with exactly how to help him. Writing has always come easily for me, and was directly related to how much I read. I don’t even think to mention things to him that seem so obvious to me, but apparently make no sense to him. So I do need a curriculum that takes ME out the equation mostly!
I’m embarrassed to say, I have not tried having him type instead. He uses speech to text on his phone for when he texts his friends, or any sort of personal notes he takes. But it’s hard for me to get over the idea that that’s “cheating” when it comes to school work, since he won’t always have access to that. An example is that he’s going away to camp for 3 weeks, and I would have had him take addressed envelopes to send letters to family members while he’s there, but I know writing them would be excruciating for him, and I don’t want to hear from my in-laws about what a terrible idea homeschooling is if these are the results.
Does your family really think that if he were in public school that they have a magic way to fix his handwriting?
Don’t make your decisions based on fear. You can never please these people anyway.
Have you read The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan or The Dyslexic Advantage? Both have good ideas and a long term perspective.
With Smartphones today, very few people are ever without them. He can take pictures of things too.
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