[email protected]

On Sat, 8 Dec 2001 23:30:30 EST RValvo7626@... writes:
> Do you mean writing down their thoughts and such or just the
> mechanics of writing?

I mean the physical act of writing, period. I have noticed that spelling
and punctuation and stuff just sort of come, sooner or later - I think I
mentioned Cacie's discovery of the apostrophe a few weeks ago, it still
makes frequent appearances in both plural and possesive words - and she
can spell a lot of words that she's memorized, like "happy" and
"birthday" ;-) -although compared to your average schooled third grader
she would be behind, and she still asks me to spell a lot when she's
writing something that she wants someone else to be able to read.

Actually, Cacie wrote more when she was 3 and 4 than when she was 6 and
7. I think back then there wasn't this big discrepancy between her
writing ability and her reading ability - she was satisfied with pretty
simple stuff. Now she's not, she wants to be able to write stories like
the ones she reads, and she just can't write like A. Conan Doyle. We
tried the dictating thing but she never really liked it..

Now she's learning cursive, at her request - she asked me to do a letter
a day, capital and lower case, and write them on the white board and make
a space for her to write them underneath. It's been pretty cool - she's
been able to write her name in cursive for a year or so but hasn't wanted
to do anymore since her dad decided to "help" :-P The porblem is that
we're now on F, and I went to a wacky school and learned some form of
cursive that no one else has ever seen, and my Fs and Ts look weird... so
I have to find a website with standard cursive. I did convince her to
take the weekend off from it.

Dar
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Julie Stauffer

<<maybe she just isn't ready>>

I think that is probably true. 7 is very young (although it seemed half-way
to grown with my first child). In reality, how much writing does a 7yo NEED
to do? Perhaps the occasional thank you note or birthday card. There are
lots of things involving writing that a 7yo might enjoy doing, like writing
stories, making lists, etc., but I don't think they are probably things the
child NEEDS to do.

My 8yo hates to write. Presses too hard, overworks his hand muscles, it is
a strain to even watch him. The ease with which he writes did improve after
he took a pottery class. Working the clay may have helped strengthen his
muscles.

Julie

[email protected]

I have a book called "Right Brained Kids Living in a Left-Brained World",
that states (talking about schooled kids), that their should never be a
concern about wirting until the child is 9.

I know of at least 4 boys who's writing was terrible at 8, and magically
changed at 9. The author also recommends these kids type instead of
write.

My son is 7, and his writing (if comparing, which I choose not to) is not
good...but he can, and I figure that's all that matters. The time he
writes the most (still rarely) is if I'm on the phone..."Mum- I came 2nd
in GT" or "Tell X I lost another tooth."

When my family get at me about it (and they appear to left writing issues
for times tables now...sigh), I merely let them know how often I
write...addressing letters, filling out forms, writing lists- everything
else is typed.

It seems to quiet them- they go on about "in my day", but they can
recognise that day isn't today.

Shell (in NZ)
DS7 & DD3

mother_bhaer

> I have a book called "Right Brained Kids Living in a Left-Brained
World",
> that states (talking about schooled kids), that their should never
be a
> concern about wirting until the child is 9.
>

I think we have to be careful about thinking a child will write by 9
or read by 8 even if an "expert" has said it. Our kids have
different interests and different goals in life and there may be some
things we think (because convention says so) they need at a certain
age, but we've seen countless examples on this list and others like
it that go against that belief.

My son will be 12 this May. He just started reading about a year and
a half ago. His first book to read.... Harry Potter! That's an
amazing accomplishment for your first book ever! He's gone on to
read a couple more Harry Potter books since then, but he's listened
to most of them on tape. He loves to listen to books on tape and
play with Legos or army men at the same time.

He also reads the info on his PSII games that he needs and his pc
games. He likes to read the caption under pics in the books he gets
from the library. That way he knows if there's anything that he
might want to know more about.

He doesn't write at all. At his age, the "experts" might think he
has a problem. If there is an expert on my son, it would be me. He
doesn't have a problem. He sees no need for it yet and he doesn't
enjoy it. He's too busy. Once we were out of printer ink and ds
wanted some cheats for ps2 game. I thought he might write out of
necessity. I looked over at the computer and I saw his 7 yo sister
copying his cheats for him (she loves to write/copy). lol He is very
resourceful! He knows his way around a keyboard. And I'm sure that
he will be able to write whenever he sees the need for it.

I don't look at him and think, "Oh, he has a writing problem." He
just doesn't need it right now. He might not ever see the need and
he might use the keyboard. Who knows? He's great just like he is.

Terri

Sandra Dodd

On Mar 3, 2006, at 8:00 AM, mother_bhaer wrote:

> I think we have to be careful about thinking a child will write by 9
> or read by 8 even if an "expert" has said it. Our kids have
> different interests and different goals in life and there may be some
> things we think (because convention says so) they need at a certain
> age, but we've seen countless examples on this list and others like
> it that go against that belief.


I agree. Experts write about averages and statistics. For every
child who writes at four, then, if eight or nine is the average,
there should be one who doesn't write until 12.

It's like height and weight. Doctors mess with kids for not being
mean, median or mode, but all those measures come from arrays of
measures with people above and below them.

Sandra

Schuyler Waynforth

>
> > I think we have to be careful about thinking a child will write by 9
> > or read by 8 even if an "expert" has said it. Our kids have
> > different interests and different goals in life and there may be some
> > things we think (because convention says so) they need at a certain
> > age, but we've seen countless examples on this list and others like
> > it that go against that belief.
>
>
> I agree. Experts write about averages and statistics. For every
> child who writes at four, then, if eight or nine is the average,
> there should be one who doesn't write until 12.


David and I were talking about that two days ago. A friend of his who
is a primatologist was talking about how nature and nurture don't seem
to explain everything, how the whole seems to be more than the sum of
it's parts. Which brought us around to talking about how science
isn't usually about individual cases, it is more about population
norms. And even if the population is as specific as psychology
undergraduates at the University of Durham, it isn't possible to
explain every aspect of an individual psychology student at the
University of Durham based on the population as a whole. You can make
predictions based on certain information that has some probability of
being accurate, but you can't know without actually meeting the
person, without knowing the individual.

Schuyler

hmsdragonfly

> My son is 7, and his writing (if comparing, which I choose not to)
> is not good...but he can, and I figure that's all that matters.

Absolutely!

This is one of those areas where it might be worth a bit of activist
reminding that homeschooling/unschooling can't be the "cause" of
something that would be considered perfectly normal were the child in
school. Kids with bad handwriting still pass 2nd, 4th, 8th, 11th
grade! They graduate from high school and college, as a matter of
fact. Many of them graduate from medical school. :-)

df

Sandra Dodd

> Many of them graduate from medical school. :-)


With a scribble for a signature!

elainegh8

The whole signature thing has been quite interesting for me coming
from a different cultural perspective. In the UK I have never heard
anyone say anything about signatures. Certainly no-one gets worried in
case their signature isn't stylish. There are a few jokes about having
to have unreadable writing to be a doctor, but that's as far as it
goes. Signatures are just not a concern over here.


BWs Elaine

my3sonsinva

I was the original one that posted. I didn't mean signing his name.
I'm not sure how it got to signing names. I don't know when or where
an eight year old would ever need to sign his name. I was wondering
if it was unusual to have an eight year old that doesn't write his
name, as in on a piece of art work or such. At his TaeKwonDo class
they have a sign in sheet. The teacher always says this is for the
children to me and I still sign him in. My child asked me to teach
him because he wants to do it. He senses the teachers tension, I
think. I had him practice, it was to difficult so I told him just
write his initials. He has a hard time doing that also. My friend
took him once to another location. She is also an instructor. She is
a relaxed homeschooler and a very dear friend. He wrote his
initials. She told him he couldn't, he had to write his name. My
husband has also taken him and couldn't believe he can't write his
name. He told me I failed and told me I should put our children in
school. This is why I posted it here. I wanted to see if anyone else
has an eight year old that doesn't write his name. In school, they
write it all day, labeling their work. I don't see where even in a
school at home situation a homeschooler would need to label his work
or write his name.

Blessings,
Barb in VA


--- In [email protected], "elainegh8"
<elainegh8@...> wrote:
>
> The whole signature thing has been quite interesting for me coming
> from a different cultural perspective. In the UK I have never heard
> anyone say anything about signatures. Certainly no-one gets worried
in
> case their signature isn't stylish. There are a few jokes about
having
> to have unreadable writing to be a doctor, but that's as far as it
> goes. Signatures are just not a concern over here.
>
>
> BWs Elaine
>

wifetovegman2002

--- In [email protected], "my3sonsinva"
<my3sonsinva@...> wrote:

> My child asked me to teach
> him because he wants to do it. He senses the teachers tension, I
> think. I had him practice, it was to difficult so I told him just
> write his initials. He has a hard time doing that also.


Hi, Barb!

It sounds like fine-motor control is hard for him. Does he like to
play with legos or playdoh? Do jigsaw puzzles? Doing those and other
things like that with him might help. When I broke my wrist, they had
me do all those things, like squeezing sponges, washing dishes,
playing with playdoh, etc. to regain my fine-motor control.

My son Andrew had a very hard time with writing until he started
painting miniature figures of LOTR and Warhammer, at about age 11.
After about 6 months, handwriting/printing suddenly wasn't hard at all
for him.

It is just part of a broad ability range.


> My
> husband has also taken him and couldn't believe he can't write his
> name. He told me I failed and told me I should put our children in
> school.


You haven't failed. You have other children who can write just fine,
right?

~Susan M (in VA)
wifetovegman

Sandra Dodd

On Mar 5, 2006, at 6:19 AM, my3sonsinva wrote:

> I was the original one that posted. I didn't mean signing his name.
> I'm not sure how it got to signing names.


Every discussion here is to be about ideas, and one idea leads to
another.



-=-My child asked me to teach
him because he wants to do it. -=-

But just because someone wants to do something doesn't mean he's
physically or mentally able to do it at that point.

-=-He senses the teachers tension, I think. -=-

Kirby's karate teacher said "He has to fill it in himself," when
Kirby was ten and there was a long form. I simply said "He can't,"
and I continued to write.

You can defuse the teacher's tension and reassure your child more
easily and realistically than you can teach him to write quickly to
make a teacher feel better.

-=-He told me I failed and told me I should put our children in
school. This is why I posted it here. I wanted to see if anyone else
has an eight year old that doesn't write his name-=-

Yes, there are, but the point isn't that. The point is creating a
safe space for and around your child so that whatever he knows is
valued and recognized and celebrated and whatever he doesn't know yet
isn't a big deal.

Unless your husband understands unschooling a little better, maybe
you can't unschool. I'm always surprised when mothers seem to be
doing this on the sly, without their husband's cooperation and
knowledge. I don't see how it could work.

-=-I don't see where even in a
school at home situation a homeschooler would need to label his work
or write his name. -=-

But you yourself have a real-world situation in which others expect
him to write his name. Either sign in for him and tell them to chill
(what if he didn't have hands or was blind? Wouldn't they let you
sign on the little line THEN!?), or help him practice writing his
name. Maybe one letter a day, just writing it everywhere, finding it
everywhere, playing with it, making it fun, a game. The next day add
another letter, so you're playing with and looking for that two-
letter combination, at the beginnings or in the middle of other
words, on cardboard boxes, on cereal boxes, on billboards or stores'
names.

Sandra

Sandra Dodd

Holly gets her braces off next month. When she first started going
to this orthodontist she was twelve, and that's about as young as
they take people. He doesn't believe in braces for very young children.

When Holly first started going, she could hardly write her name. I
would sign her in. They didn't care.

But my point is going to be that sometimes now Marty takes her, or
Marty takes himself (he's 17, and got braces last year at the same
place because his weren't so apparently crooked, the dentist showed
us future problems, from X-rays, and they're problems Keith-the-dad
did have, even though his teeth look very straight).

Holly's sign-in still isn't pretty. Others there who go to fancy
private schools have beautiful signatures and their parents negotiate
elaborately with cellphones about when their appointments can be to
fit around all their scheduled obligations. Holly plans around
whether it's before or after lunch, and not so early she would have
to set an alarm.

Holly's sign-in isn't very pretty, but she takes really good care of
her teeth, she asks good questions, makes interesting conversation
and comes in as soon as she has a problem. By contrast, you can
guess, some of the others argue with their mothers in the waiting
room, make excuses for less-than-stellar oral hygiene, or have great
hygiene because the parents press them with rules and guilt and
punishments to clean their braces by the book, by the calendar, by
the clock.

So a pretty sign-in isn't everything. It's just one small part of a
big life.

Sandra

elainegh8

Hi
I agree with the statement below. My dd has a similar problem. If
he really wants to write then sometimes finding the right kind of pen
or pencil can help. My dd uses either a really fat pen, a fattish
pen/pencil that is triangular or oen that has a special grip.
Experimenting with pens and pencils might be fun and if he finds one
he likes he can take it with him wherever he goes.

BWs Elaine

> Hi, Barb!
>
> It sounds like fine-motor control is hard for him. Does he like to
> play with legos or playdoh? Do jigsaw puzzles? Doing those and
other> things like that with him might help.

storytellers04

"I had him practice, it was to difficult so I told him just write his
initials. He has a hard time doing that also."

Hello Barb,

Googling "dysgraphia" may (or may not) provide further information
addressing your situation. If this is relevant, and your spouse is
thinking "school", be aware that some schools deal horrendously
with "dysgraphia" – to the detriment of children (for example, by
perhaps treating all illegible or simply slower answers as a failure
to provide the required work).

Emily