Tova

I was hoping to get some ideas on ways for my 10 year old daughter to incorporate more writing into her life. Writing seems so limited in her daily life, and it is not something she especially likes to do as she is a more active individual. She writes letters (pen pal), stories, lists (such as grocery), and comics but we would like some other ideas on learning to write from other unschoolers. Thanks!

Joyce Fetteroll

On Oct 23, 2011, at 10:08 PM, Tova wrote:

> She writes letters (pen pal), stories, lists (such as grocery), and
> comics but we would like some other ideas on learning to write from
> other unschoolers.

Why? That's an awful lot of writing for a 10 yo who doesn't like to
write.

And by "we" do you mean you and her or you and your partner? And if
her, why is she asking to do more of something she doesn't like to do?
Where did she get the idea she needed to do more?

If she's writing letters, stories and comics, where do you get the
idea she doesn't like to write?

If it's the physical part of writing she doesn't like, offer to write
for her. Or audio record. Or video record. (Most newer computers can
do that quite easily.) If it's the creative part, I'm confused. That's
really a lot of writing for a 10 yo.

How could your husband get you to incorporate more plumbing into your
life? Especially if it's so limited in your daily life, and not
something you especially like to do? How would it feel if you realized
he was seeding your life with "plumbing opportunities"?

Kids will pursue what's intriguing and meaningful to them. If she's
not writing, it's not meaningful to her. And by pressuring her to do
something *you* want her to find meaningful is more likely to make her
back away than to draw her in closer to it.

If she is interested in texting or message boards or IMs or emailing,
don't get in her way :-) You could leave her personal lovey, charming,
funny personal notes for her to stumble across (with *zero* pressure
to respond).

But my daughter who *loves* to write now and wrote reams of comics
from the time she was 7 didn't start writing lengthy stuff until she
was 14. And didn't start writing to people online (emails, message
boards) until she was 15.

Joyce

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Schuyler

It's easy, it's normal to have a list of tick boxes on the clipboard in your
head that demonstrate to you that your child has achieved an education. Writing
proficiency probably appears pretty early on in the list. The truth is that
writing isn't a huge aspect of my or my children's day to day lives. I type far
more than I write and so do they. If I were to insert more writing into their
lives it would be my emphasis and not the life that any of us is leading. How
often do you write?


If, however, the need is part of their lives I have no doubt that they will do
what they need to do to get their skills up to whatever par is required. When I
was 7 I went to a Holt inspired school that didn't focus on skill and instead
was about exploring the world and learning as you went. I went for two fabulous
years and I would have continued forever, but my dad became disturbed by the
idea that his money was making me exempt from the experiences of less moneyed
children. The summer between the two schools my mom bought a bunch of those
notebooks with dashed lines in the middle and we wrote stories together to bring
my writing skills up to the levels required by the less enlightened school ;0).
Within three months of not particularly diligent work on my and my mom's part I
was up to snuff.


Writing is a tool. Why work to use a tool when you don't need it or want it?
Most of writing is hand - eye coordination. Lots of things will make that
connection so that when it comes to writing more, better she will have better
ability to do so. Linnaea draws a lot and doodles. She has a hard time not
drawing. When she writes it is fairly clearly. Simon, who doesn't doodle or draw
very much, if ever, writes as clearly as Linnaea. The other day we were trying
to see how small each of us could write something and, while mine was the
smallest, Simon's was a very close second.


Schuyler





________________________________
From: Tova <ml_ja@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, 24 October, 2011 3:08:28
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Writing Ideas

I was hoping to get some ideas on ways for my 10 year old daughter to
incorporate more writing into her life. Writing seems so limited in her daily
life, and it is not something she especially likes to do as she is a more active
individual. She writes letters (pen pal), stories, lists (such as grocery), and
comics but we would like some other ideas on learning to write from other
unschoolers. Thanks!



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links



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Tova

That's right, it is a lot of writing, we wanted *different* creative ideas of natural every day ways to write to make writing more intriguing, not for her to do more, but a variety of different kinds. By we it is me and her. I encourage writing a little bit daily for spelling because she doesn't read much either, she has an interest in literature but prefers to listen to audio books over reading so she can be active as she 'reads'. She uses the computer rarely. She does not text. I have never texted, lol.

Please help me understand how she will pick up spelling if she is not partaking in it daily in some form? That does not mean writing long, elaborate stories daily. I am up for any ways to learn spelling, but how with a child who doesn't read, doesn't use the computer, text or write!? You all are right, writing seems to be a dying thing as it is hard for me to think of other everyday ways to write other than a shopping list...but that's why I came here for ideas!
 
Thank you :)

Tova

Thank you for your response and your insight! If you could look at my other response that would be great. I would love to get help on ways to, more specifically, help my daughter learn to spell better. You are right, writing isn't done very often in real life, but my daughter also does not use the computer to type, she does not own a cell phone to text as she is only 10, and she prefers to listen to audio books. With all of this presented, my question is: how does she learn to spell?

Please help. Thank you.

P.s. That Holt inspired school sounds neat.

Joyce Fetteroll

On Oct 24, 2011, at 7:01 AM, Tova wrote:

> how she will pick up spelling if she is not partaking in it daily in
> some form?

She's 10. She's still young to expect standard spelling even if she
read a lot. I would say puberty is more the time when kids start
paying attention to the "right" (standard) way of doing things. Not
exclusively but puberty is when they become more intrigued by (adult
world) situations where rules and standards are useful.

By the time standard spelling is something she cares to use when she's
communicating with someone, she'll have *years* more exposure. *And*
she'll have a real personally meaningful reason to pay attention. Not
a mom fear induced reason before it's important or needed.

Even if she's not using the computer now, she likely will use some
form of it in the future. And those red underlines from spell check
will be hugely helpful in feedback for self correction.

Even if she does for some reason prefer paper to computers for
writing, she'll be more aware of standard spellings when she wants to
communicate clearly with someone else. And then it will be easy. Right
now she's more likely to feel wrong if you focus on it. But she's no
more wrong at how she spells now than a 6 mo who can't (yet) walk.

Joyce

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BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

I have many eclectic homeschooling friends and many school at home homeschooling friends.
They make their kids write a little bit everyday. They work on spelling, a couple even teach Latin.
My son has always been unschooled. I never made him do any thing or tried to teach him anything.
He learned to read by playing video games online.
He writes online , sometimes a little, sometimes some very short stories.
He can write well and has a pretty nice handwriting. I do not think he likes it very much as he can type very fast and he likes that.
He is an awesome speller. That is just how he is. My friend's kids ( about 5 the same age)do not even come close to spelling like he does.
I think it is just how he is and because he cares to spell write ...maybe.

I think Audio books are awesome, specially if you want to keep moving.  I would just let her be.
What does she like to do? Does she like videos? video games? Board games?
What does she really like?


 
Alex Polikowsky

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BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

 

 
<<<"Thank you for your response and your insight! If you could look at my other response that would be great. I would love to get help on ways to, more specifically, help my daughter learn to spell better. You are right, writing isn't done very often in real life, but my daughter also does not use the computer to type, she does not own a cell phone to text as she is only 10, and she prefers to listen to audio books. With all of this presented, my question is: how does she learn to spell?">>>


She may never be a great speller. having said that why does she meed to be a great speller at 10? She may start writing for fun at 18 or 25, she may become a reader at 30.
There are people that are very successful and cannot spell at all, many physicians are like that!

Alex Polikowsky

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Dana Hoffman Ellis

My daughter did not learn to spell until more like 15, when she finally got a computer with spell check and got interested in writing on a keyboard. No need to rush your 10 yo if she is not interested in spelling. My daughter wrote by dictation and did no physical writing at all until that point.

Dana

Sent from my iPad
> . With all of this presented, my question is: how does she learn to spell?
>
> Please help. Thank you.
>

Schuyler

Some people never master spelling, other folks never seem to have much problem
with it. I used to be better at it than I am now. I don't know why my intuition
about when a word is spelled correctly is fading, but there it is. Spellcheck is
amazing, I use it before sending out e-mails, usually, and while it doesn't
catch my word misusage it certainly catches mistakes I make regularly.


Simon didn't learn to read until he was 12 but a few years ago when we were
playing a spelling game in the car with him and Linnaea and my mom he was better
at intuiting the spelling than Linnaea. I think that she is a stronger speller
than he is now, though. I imagine that his spelling will improve along the more
interested he becomes in whatever it is that requires spelling.


Schuyler




________________________________
From: Tova <ml_ja@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, 24 October, 2011 12:11:47
Subject: Re: [unschoolingbasics] Writing Ideas

Thank you for your response and your insight! If you could look at my other
response that would be great. I would love to get help on ways to, more
specifically, help my daughter learn to spell better. You are right, writing
isn't done very often in real life, but my daughter also does not use the
computer to type, she does not own a cell phone to text as she is only 10, and
she prefers to listen to audio books. With all of this presented, my question
is: how does she learn to spell?


Please help. Thank you.

P.s. That Holt inspired school sounds neat.





------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links



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Ulrike Haupt

You wrote

"but we would like some other ideas on learning to write"



My first response was WHY? What for? If she needs to 'write something; she will get the
resources to write it the way she needs to. If there is no need/urgency to write, why <not
allowed expression> bother? Can the information be imparted in another way?

Unschooling is about becoming able to do what you want/need to do when it is right to
be/do what is required. Isn't writing lists, communicating and writing letters enough for
now? The abitlity to write books is really only needed when and if she ever wants to write
a book - whenever that may happen, if ever.



When my youngest and unschooled son needed to do a 'signature' on his application for an
ID document at some time past 16 years he did a few practice runs. Actually I am in a
situation myself on this issue. The signature on my ID card does not match the signature I
use currently to sign documents. If I had a claim, or my beneficiary on my case of death
had a claim on my account at our company the claim would not pay out because the
signatures do not fit. <cosmic cackle>

Writing is so much more different from what we think it is.

Give me a day of relative tranquility and you might be able to read nearly every letter I
write. Let it be a day of some little stress and NO-ONE including my own self knows what
was supposed to be put into the squiggles visible on the piece of paper available. Reading
is quite an issue - we can make a lot of 'make belief' from what we think what this means
that we see here. Writing is our attempt to communicate and when this is in dire straights
our 'communication' to the world may be very wrangled. At least this is what I experience
on a daily basis - not even with my unschooled kids but very much with myself and the
people I work with.



I think we should keep the ability to read and understand and the ability to write and
know what you want to communicate in very separate compartements.



Blissings

U

PS - I have a granddaughter who has developed ASL (Ariella Sign Language) It means to me
that whatever she communicates is on the basis of HER language - which is not a written
language yet. In the spirit of Unschooling it is my work to understand her where she is at
this moment, not make her 'speak/write' a language that I can understand.



PSS

How about designing a 'language' between you that only YOU can decipher, like the sign
language between Ariella and us. When she holds her hands up over her head and wriggles
her fingers and says 'otto' we understand that she talks about he Avatar Series one. We do
not have to insist that she says AVATAR Series One! before we can set the laptop to play
her current favourite series.




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Denise Jordan

"how she will pick up spelling if she is not partaking in it daily in
> some form?"

Here is an idea from my 9 yr old. One day I noticed she always turned on closed caption on the tv. I ask her why she did that since she could hear, she said "Mom, it's teaching me how to read and spell" Pretty darn smart for a 9 yr old.

Schuyler

Of course that was your daughter's solution. If that was you working to get her
to read it might have been resisted. As the original poster suggested that her
daughter was engaged in the search for ways to increase her exposure to the
written word, so the original poster could suggest it. I used to put the closed
captioning on when the house was too loud to hear the television and it
irritated Simon and Linnaea on occasion. If I'd been pushing an agenda to get
them to read, to help them with spelling or whatever, they might have gotten
even more irritated.


Schuyler





________________________________
From: Denise Jordan <denisejordan4@...>
To: unschooling <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, 24 October, 2011 19:39:52
Subject: RE: [unschoolingbasics] Writing Ideas

"how she will pick up spelling if she is not partaking in it daily in
> some form?"

Here is an idea from my 9 yr old. One day I noticed she always turned on closed
caption on the tv. I ask her why she did that since she could hear, she said
"Mom, it's teaching me how to read and spell" Pretty darn smart for a 9 yr
old.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Meredith

Tova <ml_ja@...> wrote:
>
> That's right, it is a lot of writing, we wanted *different* creative ideas of natural every day ways to write to make writing more intriguing
****************

This all seems very contrived "world as my classroom" thinking rather than seeing learning as a natural part of living. When the world is a classroom "natural" is some contrived exercise made to parrot real life. Live. If your daughter has a reason to write, she will write. Help as needed.

Are you asking because you need to prove something to the government or out of your own concerns? If there are legal hoops to jump through, you might do better with a local list to find out common strategies used by people in your area. If its that this is something you're worried about, personally, step back a bit. Learning isn't the direct, linear progression school likes to pretend. Real learning happens because ideas swirl around and connections are made. You can't create make it happen. You can create "learning opportunities" without engendering the learning you envision.

> Please help me understand how she will pick up spelling if she is not partaking in it daily in some form?
*******************

To start with, you're laboring under a misapprehension - "partaking daily" isn't how people learn to spell in the first place. Some people catch on to spelling quickly and easily. Others learn to spell more slowly, over years, as words catch their eye. I'm one of the latter sort. I'm an avid reader and writer and yet I'm not a very good speller at all! I've learned to spell words one at a time, here and there, as I notice them, but I use a Lot of words! So it has taken me decades to learn to spell some of them, and I'm by no means done (still can't spell apology or satelite for instance... I think one of those is right... maybe).

My daughter writes for pleasure regularly - a couple times a week - and doesn't have great spelling, but her spelling is about as good as a friend of hers, a year older, with daily writing and spelling exercises.

If your daughter wants to know how to spell something, tell her. Period. Don't have her look it up. Don't have her guess or sound out. Just tell her. If she'd rather, write it out for her. That's all. No tricks, lessons or daily writing plan, just tell her what she wants to know. If she Wants more, by all means show her how to use a spell checker or dictionary (or spelling dictionary), but don't push those.

>>that's why I came here for ideas!

I'm afraid you may be in the wrong place! this isn't a place to get "how do I teach my child X without it looking like teaching" information, its a place to get some ideas of what learning looks like without teaching, so you can relax a bit and spend time with your kids without fussing about their spelling.

If you step back and watch your daughter draw comics and play with words on her own terms, you'll See how she learns to spell.

---Meredith

Tova

Wow a lot of insight, opinions, ideas and things to think about. THANK YOU! Honestly my first response was that of defensiveness at a seeming lecture and judgment and a feeling i was getting 'my way to unschool is superior to yours' or 'you're doing unschooling wrong' which I didn't want, because after all I am not a new unschooler, I believe in this way and it is a part of me just as much as everyone on this list. But then I shifted my thinking to one of reception which it should be because I CAN learn so much from you all, and I AM!

And even though Ideally I believe 100% in the unschooling philosophy with all my heart and soul and have been doing it 90% of the time for the last 10 years, at times I still want and need to deschool myself and shake that nasty school mentality that was a part of me for 12 years.

It sure can be a challenge to take all
my idealistic thoughts and put them into practice;
I know what unschooling looks likes in my head, but what does it look
like in our lives; to live it..

I do trust my daughter, and I do trust that she will learn everything she needs to just as I continue to learn the things I need to as an adult. She is not unique where she has to be forced whereas I do not. The key is that internal drive, and not do it out of a duty to me. Okay, thanks again group!