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My daughter is doing RtR this year, and we are loving it. I have also been homeschooling a friend's son using Preparing. He came to me in September after being in public school from kindergarten through 3rd grade. He is presently 10 years old and in the 4th grade. We have been working all year on using capitals and punctuation in everything that he writes. He still does not seem to have this down. I have to sit with him and remind him continually , and sometimes this skill is not practiced even after being prompted. I have him correct these mistakes regularly. Am I expecting too much from a 4th grader? I may be and I want to be fair, therefore, I need your advice.

The work that we do not finish in the 4 1/2 hours that he is at my house is sent home for homework. In his homework, he rarely uses capitals and punctuation. His mom tells me that she looks over his work, so I am assuming that she does not feel that needs to be corrected. It has been 3 years since I have had a 4th grader, therefore I may need to be reminded of expectations of that age.

I do realize there are different abilities among certain age groups, but felt it important to say that his mom mentioned that he was recommended for "gifted and talented" when he was in public school.

Your advice and opinions are appreciated!

Blessed,

Patti

I do not have much faith in the "gifted and talented" label. Yes, I think a fourth grader should be able to start a sentence with a capital letter and use end puctuation. I would pointing it out, work on it, and metion it to his mother since she checks over some of the work. Before he does any work on his own, I would always ask, "What does a sentence start with? What does a sentence end with? Then when the work was handed in I would ask, "Did you start each sentence with a capital? Does each sentence have an endmark?"

Just to help Mom (and you) feel better, I am in the same boat with my 11yo 5th grader. This is one of the reasons I turned to HOD. I have been getting discouraged and I couldn't find a way to combat this on a daily basis. I am praying that this year (using preparing) will challenge him to work on those skills.

Thought I would share with you...

8arrows wrote:I do not have much faith in the "gifted and talented" label. Yes, I think a fourth grader should be able to start a sentence with a capital letter and use end puctuation. I would pointing it out, work on it, and metion it to his mother since she checks over some of the work. Before he does any work on his own, I would always ask, "What does a sentence start with? What does a sentence end with? Then when the work was handed in I would ask, "Did you start each sentence with a capital? Does each sentence have an endmark?"

Hi Patti! I am in complete agreement with 8arrows wise advice here! Perhaps a chat with mom and ds would be good - about how every single time ds writes a sentence without proper punctuation and capitalization, he is internalizing that habit further? When I taught 4th grade in ps, there were probably 1/4 of the dc that wrote with practically zero punctuation and capitalization (I won't get into spelling here). Anyway, it is a tough habit to undo. The reminders 8arrows suggested, and the questions are important to do. This is not something to let go. It is definitely something to strive for, for a fourth grader, and even for a third grader. Copywork and dictation will begin to help, but that does take time.

One other thing that is helpful is to have him read his work out loud. When he pauses, have him put the appropriate marks if they are missing. It is also helpful to explain that punctuation marks are pausing, stopping points, and they are cues to the reader for how to read what is written. I remember demonstrating this by reading straight through no pauses whatsoever, sounding like an out of breath freight train by the end to teach this. By the end I was gasping for breath, and the student was laughing at me, saying "No - that is NOT how I meant it to be read!" Then we fixed it together. Maybe this could help too?

Just googling it, here is CA's state standards for fourth graders in these areas...

Punctuation:
use commas in direct quotations, apostrophes in possessives and contractions, and parentheses
use underlining, quotations, or italics to identify titles

Capitalization:
capitalize names of magazines, newspapers, works of art, musical compositions, names of organizations, and the first word in quotations

Here is AZ's state standards for fourth graders in these areas...

PO 1. Use capital letters for:
a. proper nouns ( i.e., names, days, months)
b. titles
c. names of place
d. abbreviations
e. literary titles (i.e., book, story, poem)

PO 2. Punctuate endings of sentences using:
a. periods
b. question marks
c. exclamation points

PO 3. Use commas to punctuate:
a. items in a series
b. greetings and closings of letters
c. dates
d. introductory words

PO 4. Use quotation marks to punctuate:
a. dialogue (although may be inconsistent or experimental)
b. titles


Anyway - you can rest assured that this is something to expect a fourth grader to do, and it is important enough to remind him to do every single time he is writing. He will come around with repetition, with dictation, with copywork - and then he'll have replaced the old habit of not writing with punctuation/capitalization, with the new habit of always remembering to do so! But mom will have to come on board with it, or she'll only undo what you're doing.

In Christ,
Julie

Thank you, ladies, for all your wonderful input. Julie, I appreciate your research in this matter. It lead me to check into the standards for Texas, and I found it very enlightening. I do continually remind him about capitalization and punctuation. I have him make corrections if he does not follow these rules of grammar. After talking with his mom, I feel that she does not think that this should be expected of him, and that may possibly be why we have not seen progress. Hopefully, now we are on the same page and will see improvement in this area.

Even though I do not post very often on this board, I read am a faithful reader of it. I find myself checking it several times during the day as I am always interested in what each one of you have to say.

Thanks,

Patti