Writing. All kids love to do it, right? Wrong! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know most don't. Especially my stubborn child.
One week before school ended for the year, I told my daughter she was going to start writing every day.
Needless to say, she whined. BIG TIME!
"Mom, I HATE writing! It's boring and a waste of my time!"
"Too bad." I told her, "You're going to start by writing 40 to 50 words each night and I don't care what you write. Just write. You can even say you hate writing if it makes you feel better."
I knew I should have started her writing at home years ago. But like most parents, my husband and I assumed she was learning all she needed at school. Big mistake! When I saw how well one of her younger cousin's and one of her school friend's writing and spelling were, I knew she had room for improvement.
The first writing session was horrid. Her anger for having to write oozed from her pencil. She wrote,
"This is stuped! I hate this! I want to wach tv. Grrrrrrrrr! I do NOT want to do this! I WANT to play! This is sooooo boring! I want ice cream! I want a new DS game! This is sooooo stuped!"
I rolled my eyes when I saw how hard she had pressed down on the pencil for the words "stuped" and "Grrrrrrrrr!". I DID tell her she could write whatever she wanted, so I just bit my tongue and decided I better count the number of words first to make sure she met the 40 to 50 word requirement before I proofread it. My daughter, being the minimalist she is for anything she doesn't like, wrote one word over the requirement - a big whopping 41 words.
It was a start.
Next, I checked her grammar, spelling and sentence structure. There were many errors. Instead of telling her what errors she made, I guided her by asking her what was wrong with the spelling of a word or the punctuation of a sentence. She was grumpy, but we got through all the corrections and she went outside to play.
During the first week she learned how to spell "stupid", "almost", "very" and many other words. She also learned to apply the same pressure to the pencil so all the words were the same color. Basic punctuation and grammar guidelines were also learned. She already knew how to do most of this basic stuff, but it took her several days to get the grumpies out of her system.
Although almost four weeks into her daily writing she still occasionally writes, "I hate this!", she also writes nice things like:
"I need to get Oreo more cat food from the garage. He is taking a bath. He's so cute!"
My daughter doesn't complain anymore when I tell her to do her writing. What took her 20 minutes to do during her first few writings, now takes her less than 5 minutes. She knows if she does a good job and doesn't mess around, she's done for the day and can go play with her friends. One day she even seemed to enjoy her writing lesson by writing an all-time high 52 words! Yay! She also doesn't ask for writing topics, is less frustrated with her spelling, grammar and punctuation and her penmanship has improved tremendously. All in such a short period of time. It's amazing!
I plan to increase her word count in a couple weeks to 50 to 60 words a day and every now and then pick a topic for her to write about. But for now, I want her to be creative and write whatever is on her mind and not stress out because there are limitations.
While she still has a lot more to learn and improve on, my husband and I look forward to seeing her writing skills continue to grow. Maybe we'll even get some short stories out of her. She has such an imagination from all the books she enjoys reading.
LESSON LEARNED: Don't rely on ONLY the school to teach your child.
No comments:
Post a Comment