I wonder if you could try instilling good work habits with non-school related things? Putting his own clothes away, setting the table, and so on? Maybe coming at it more obliquely like that might help a little.

Writing is just a hard one for little boys, I think. Mine have liked the Getty-Dubay Italic series quite well (and like the previous poster who uses HWT--which I hear is also very good--they just do a page a day, and there has been some progress, all right).

Have you seen Julie Brennan's Living Math site? www.livingmath.net She has all sorts of lists of story books and history books about math; it might be an appealing way to tackle it for a while. Or games, maybe? There's a neat company called MathArtFun that has a lot of cool stuff. www.mathartfun.com

There's more than one way to skin a cat, as my Nana always said!

peace
minnie