How do I get my daughter to like writing?

[Tinkermommy]

My 9 year old daughter just started 4th grade. She is in advanced reading and reads like a champ.

But she hates to write. She really dislikes the physical act of writing and will write as little as possible to get by. Now, what she writes is correct in the strictest sense but it is not complete and certainly not up to standards for a 4th grader.

She also writes extremely messy although she can write beautifully when she wants. She does great on spelling tests, but when it comes time to write, just does it phonetically so she can get done.

I have tried encouraging her to write books (she has a great imagination and she can express her self verbally no problem), be pen pals with a cousin, keep a diary. Nothing motivates her!

I know this will be more and more important as her education progresses, so I want to help her. I am thinking about a tutor or Sylvan.

Anyone else been in this situation? What did you do?

 

[Pixie Dust for Me!]

I had a very, very, very reluctant writer...my DS, he's 12 now. Notice I said had...! My DS hated to use paper and pen (or pencil) and was struggling so hard with writing a short paper in 4th grade so I decided that maybe typing would help him. Boy oh boy, did it ever!

Now he writes for his school newspaper and will actually sit down and write papers without my nagging. Does he write with paper and pen/pencil -- no! He prefers composing on the computer which I completely understand because he can edit as he goes...and edit later to get the best product without erasing or having to rewrite.

Now, when we first started out, I had him dictate to me and I typed it and had him do the re-writes because he was frustrated that his fingers couldn't keep up with the words in his head.

Don't know if it will work or not, but it's worth a shot! Goodluck to you both.

K

 

[wgwtgb]

Before you consider paying for special services like Sylvan... is there something that contributes to her messy handwriting and her hate for the physical act. Does she need a pencil grip. Would that help? Is she a girly girl? Would she prefer to write in a pretty, fancy journal? I'm sayig that b/c I saw some at Hobby Lobby yesterday for cheap. Is she allowed to write about things that interest her or is it strictly what's assigned? Coming from a teacher's pov, I think all of these things could play a part. Yes, writing will become a larger aspect of the entire picture as she gets older, so it would be helpful for her to jump on the bandwagon so that you aren't fighting this all through her senior year.

 

[NotUrsula]

Teach her to type. Seriously, let her keyboard wherever possible when composing, so that she will not associate the act of developing ideas with the act of putting a pen to paper.

As to handwriting, we just made DS practice, and we bought Handwriting Without Tears. The style used for that program is a bit easier than traditional scripts for people who have fine motor difficulty. His penmanship is still not good, but it is legible now; he's 13. (We started working on alternative penmanship when he was 5, and it "clicked" when he was around 11.)

 

[golfgal]

The more you push her the more she will hate it. Chances are in 4th grade her teacher won't put up with the sloppy writing and minimal sentences. I would share your concern about this with her teacher at conferences though.

 

[grafxgirl]

I was going to suggest some things the others have already suggested like teaching her to type instead of writing with a pencil, or have her keep a daily journal.

Do you think she doesn't like it because something hurts her hand when she writes?

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I write much better on computer. I did okay academically in the pre computer age. But when they came along, I could organize my thoughts better. Also--the physical act was painful.

I homeschool my children and discovered that my oldest has similar complaints that I did. So we worked in some massaging of her hand to help alleviate any aches. This year we will introduce typing skills to facilitate expression.
Also, our curriculum separates the art of writing from the mechanics of it---so she developed "how to tell a story" orally and I took dictation. Then to practice the mechanics of it--she would copy it.

If you want to work on her exressing her thoughts...maybe do some exercises where she dictates, you write, she copies.

My daughter was reluctant and still struggles with aches, but because of the way her curriculum works, she is now more inclined to write on her own.

We will fine tune her stamina and neatness this year in 5th grade.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Maybe she's got some kind of wrist pain issue? Carpel tunnel or something? Or is naturally left handed but taught to right right handed? Or maybe she just doesn't like writing? I hate Calculus. A tutor won't change that.

 

[pilesoflaundry]

I'm there with 2 of my kids. It's boring, it's repetitive and it takes longer than other homework to do so of course they don't want to.

I hate math, always have. Nothing is going to change that. My kids love math, science so many other subjects. I make them finish the homework but it takes forever and drives us all nuts. Just commiserating with you!

 

[ZephyrHawk]

Just want to agree with everyone else, get her computer access. I loved "writing" in my head, but I had handwriting issues. Sure, I could do things by hand, but if I did I spent a lot of time concentrating on my handwriting to make it look good. Plus, I thought a heck of a lot faster than I could write by hand and it was frustrating.

 

[arminnie]

I HATED writing anything pre-computers because I could not type with any accuracy. I also had never taken typing so I didn't know any of the stuff you had to do manually on a typewriter - how to set margins, etc. I to this day don't know any of the "rules" about writing a letter. Today you just pull up a template.

I first started being okay with writing when I had a secretary who had a word processor. It was so easy to tell her to move a paragraph here or there. Writing by hand is very difficult.

I wrote exactly ONE paper in college. There were so many classes that I just would not take because of the "paper" requirements. I stuck to math, physics, etc. I think I missed out on a lot of opportunities.

My favorite jobs involved writing - often technical writing. Especially when I had a real technical writer to give me the template and make final tweeks to the published article.

 

[Tinkermommy]

Some good suggestions.

She has never complained about any pain when she writes. I am hesitant to ask since that might put the thought in her head. She usually doesn't hold back if something is bother her!

I have bought her cute journals, writing books, pens. Last summer I asked her to write for 10 minutes in her journal about anything she wanted. I checked it after a few weeks. The last several days of the journal she just scribbled so it would look she was writing.

She has a computer she can use so I will try to get her to do that.

She's a great storyteller. I keep saying she could write these down and we could put them on the web where lots of people could enjoy them. But nothing seems to motivate her.

 

[PollyannaMom]

My 9 year old daughter just started 4th grade. She is in advanced reading and reads like a champ.

But she hates to write. She really dislikes the physical act of writing and will write as little as possible to get by. Now, what she writes is correct in the strictest sense but it is not complete and certainly not up to standards for a 4th grader.

She also writes extremely messy although she can write beautifully when she wants. She does great on spelling tests, but when it comes time to write, just does it phonetically so she can get done.

I have tried encouraging her to write books (she has a great imagination and she can express her self verbally no problem), be pen pals with a cousin, keep a diary. Nothing motivates her!

I know this will be more and more important as her education progresses, so I want to help her. I am thinking about a tutor or Sylvan.

Anyone else been in this situation? What did you do?

I am so with you! DS hates to write for school as well, and would do the bare minimum - but he loves to write his own comic books at home!

Same on the neatness,too. He can write very nicely when he has all the time he wants, but last year he admitted that he couldn't write neatly and still keep up with the teacher.

He's not into typing at all, but I have done the "dictation and copy over" suggestion when he'd go for it, and that's worked.

The thing I hate the most is when I see him replace the great vocabulary he's capable of with something he can spell!! (And I know I used to do the same thing.) His new teacher has pocket dictionaries for their desks on the supply list, so I'm hoping he'll get more comfortable looking up words. - I've tried to interest him without much success, but he might do it for her.

 

[Glynis]

You said she is an advanced reader. Can you use that to your advantage? I had my daughter start a "book journal" when she was about 9. She read so much, that she was having a hard time remembering all the books she read; they all jumbled together. I bought her a fun journal, and whenever she would finish a book, she would write a 2 or 3 paragraph synopsis of the book. That was it, to start. After about a year, she began adding what she liked, what she didn't like, character strengths, and weaknesses, etc.

It's become second nature to her, now, and she's progressed into writing her own stories. Her English teachers are amazed by the journal keeping. She's filled about 18 journals this way.

 

[Jeafl]

I teach special ed, but I also work with the thrid graders specifically on their writing and there are some good suggestions here.

I somewhat agree with using the computer. HOWEVER, she will be required to write during class and will most likely not allowed to use the computer for those compostions so she needs to get used to handwriting no matter what. We have 45 minutes a day devoted to what we call Writer's Workshop which is primarily writing stories. We encourage the kids to write about what they are interested in but that doesn't always help.

Has your daughter ever used a graphic organizer? Maybe if she used a simple graphic organizer to keep her thoughts organized she will feel better about it. To make a simple one take a piece of paper and draw a large circle in the middle of it. Have her write her topic in the circle. Then draw at least 5 lines or "spokes" coming out of the circle. At the end of each line draw another large circle. Inside each of those circles have her write related thoughts to her topic that she wants to include in her story.

When she goes to write the story have her number each circle 1-6 (or whatever) to designate the order she would like to talk about them. Each thought or idea can be either a sentence or a paragraph depending on how long the composition has to be.

Obviously this is just a rough idea, but my students do quite well with it.

Also, whoever suggested Handwriting without Tears was right on target--it's a great program!

 

[crewmatt]

I hated writing as a kid. I just hated the inefficiency of it. Especially if you had to go through draft, outline, review, etc. I don't know whenever I was in school, anything that even sounded like busy work I would simply not do. If it was work for work's sake then I shunned it (my policy through most of elementary and highschool was that I simply didn't do homework and that was the end of the discussion - I tested very well, and was good enough at math to see that if homework was only 10% of the grade I could pull a 90% with no additional effort that would take hours of my freetime during the week). I would happily do assignments that involved free thinking, creativity, or solving a complex problem. But if it was simple repitition (spelling, the vast majority of my english work, some of the math) yea that wasn't getting done unless I did it in class instead of paying attention.

Typing on a computer I had no issue with, if you wanted me to make a targetted change that was fine, I wouldn't have to go through and redo the whole thing. It was much more efficient. Maybe try to have an open discussion about what your child doesnt like about writing specifically. It could be physical discomfort, it could be that they don't see the importance of it in an increasingly digital age (maybe its teh physical writing and not the converting of ideas into writing that they deem wasteful).

 

[polkadotsuitcase]

My 9 year old daughter just started 4th grade. She is in advanced reading and reads like a champ.

But she hates to write.

In schools around here, 4th grade is when they begin to really get serious about teaching the kids writing. Before that, it's introduced but not really pushed. Maybe it's just an age developmental thing? Some kids are just into it before that, and some never get "into" writing. I've met adults who roll their eyes when I say I'm a writer and say they hate writing!

I like the ideas of giving her other outlets for her storytelling now, like typing (a skill she'll need and probably use more anyway these days!). Another idea for storytelling is a simple computer animation program -- my guys loved Claymation -- to serve a similar purpose.

But I wonder if it'll just come as she gets older, too. If she's interested in it, anyway. Maybe she's a scientist at heart!

BTW, We used HWT, too, and that program worked like a champ for my kiddos. I really like it.

Good luck!