Boys who hate to write
Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 9:41 pm
I have a classic boy who hates writing. He loves to learn; he loves reading, listening to the audios, and drawing. But the physical act of putting words on paper? Horrors! And this was starting to affect the quality of his written narrations as they lengthened this year. He would write the minimum number of sentences suggested for the narration. Everything was as bare-bones as he could make it. (Sound familiar anyone? ) No flowery descriptions or interesting phrasing. I was frustrated because he wrote such wonderful narrations last year in CTC. Science narrations have especially suffered because they are new and in his mind you don't "do" narrations for science. Also science tends to be at the end of the day.
This year on Fridays I had him doing a typing program. So a few weeks ago I asked if he'd like to type his narration on the computer. He brightened up at this and proceeded to produce a much improved narration! I am much relieved to find he still "had it in him." He has typed his writing assignments and his science narrations since then and it has greatly improved the quality of his writing and his outlook on writing in general. I realize that younger students still need the practice of handwriting and even at my DS's age I make sure he is doing some everyday. (He is still doing all the notebooking by hand.) But if you have a preteen or older student, try typing if you haven't. It's made a big difference around here and I'm actually looking forward to next year's writing "classes" to see what he is capable of producing.
Julie, I hope you read this because I wanted to share this with you at the MACHE conference. I think I got as far as telling how my son hates writing and then we got interrupted! I wanted you to know that the story had a happy ending.
Here is a science narration of his.
This year on Fridays I had him doing a typing program. So a few weeks ago I asked if he'd like to type his narration on the computer. He brightened up at this and proceeded to produce a much improved narration! I am much relieved to find he still "had it in him." He has typed his writing assignments and his science narrations since then and it has greatly improved the quality of his writing and his outlook on writing in general. I realize that younger students still need the practice of handwriting and even at my DS's age I make sure he is doing some everyday. (He is still doing all the notebooking by hand.) But if you have a preteen or older student, try typing if you haven't. It's made a big difference around here and I'm actually looking forward to next year's writing "classes" to see what he is capable of producing.
Julie, I hope you read this because I wanted to share this with you at the MACHE conference. I think I got as far as telling how my son hates writing and then we got interrupted! I wanted you to know that the story had a happy ending.
Here is a science narration of his.