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What does 4th grade daily writing look like?
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Either copywork or dictation 3-4 days per week plus written narration 1-2 times per week. My fifth grader is a naturally poor speller. He also uses phonetic zoo.
My 4th grader typically does copywork, dictation and written narration 2x each per week. He still gives 2-3 oral narrations per day.
Thanks for this topic ladies! I was going to post a question similar to this so this gives me the answers that I was looking for.
My 8 & 11 year old write daily. They do copywork, a grammar page & a Bravewriter activity. Today’s activity was a timed writing where they weren’t allowed to talk and had to write their conversation with me. It was a lot of fun. Another activity we’ve done is having the kids pick an item and then give me clues to guess what item it is. It has really helped them to use good descriptive writing and they think it’s a game, so they forget that it’s “work.” Our spelling has dictation, so that is done twice a week.
I have my 4th, 5th, & 6th graders do copywork on Monday (my first grader does copywork 4x a week). Then transcription or dictation on Tuesday. Written Narration on Wednesday and Thursday then finish up if they didn’t get that done or I have them do a writing from Story Starters.
May I chime in and ask on what kind of paper do your 4th graders write? My 9yo son writes well, but I am unsure what is the best paper for him to be writing on. He cannot stay within the lines of a ruled notebook yet, but I do not want to go back to the K-1 type paper.
Thank you!
blkateri14 – My 4th grader does best with wide-ruled notebook paper, and I have him double-space everything he writes.
I thought my son should be doing all the things mentioned above too but truth be told he isn’t there, yet. He is 10 now but last year he did copywork everyday and tried to do dictation once a week but could not memorize words visually. I have practiced CM style of copywork since yr 1 and was having him air write the word, write it in sand, and visually take a picture of it for 8 months and this just did not work for him. Spelling comes naturally to me so I struggled with this but I couldn’t expect him to write his own narrations or write my dictation if he couldn’t even spell. He was crying a lot over it so we stopped. I decided to try teaching him the rules which I was afraid he wouldn’t like and I sure didn’t know the rules myself because I can take visual pictures of words. So we got All About Spelling and have been using it for 6 months now. I asked him today if he thought this way of learning the rules was easier or the other way of visually picturing the word and he said learning the rules was better. I really can’t explain it because I really believe in CM methods but looking at good literature for copywork and visually picturing words just didn’t work for him. Now that he is 10, he is still doing copywork, AAS which includes dictation and any science or history writing that is needed but minimal and he is copying it. I have also started typing his narration myself and having him write some of it with my dictation after he studies it once a week. He still dislikes writing but it is improving. For paper he uses wide ruled notebook paper.
My daughter is doing a little copywork daily, dictation once/week, written narration once/week, and science journaling daily (Apologia for co-op). We are also using AAS for additional spelling, and she writes for that 1-2 times per week. She is still using 3-lined paper (comparable with what Queens cursive copywork books use), although she is probably ready to graduate to something narrower.
I needed a “grace year,” so my 4th grader is doing our state’s online school with K12 curriculum. Just to give you a more traditional school idea of what he is writing:
Monday– Literature Unit test, included four paragraph essay with prompt
Tuesday/ Thursday– Composition days, Tues. pick a topic for the five paragraph essay, research, write an outline, Thurs. write a draft, revise, rewrite
Wednesday– History assignment yesterday was to write three-four paragraphs comparing Russia’s Bismark with Italy’s Giuseppe.
Friday– still haven’t gotten there this week, but last week he answered four literature based questions with one paragraph each
I think this is far too much. Next year we are going to to IEW, and a friend said it is working on one essay all week long, a little at a time. My son and I are sooo relieved to hear that! 🙂
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