Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How to encourage sneaky writing practice

I have two boys, both gifted, one 6, one 8. They love typical boy stuff and neither is a big writer. My 6yo is more so but rarely writes outside of school assignments. They are prolific readers, I'd like to encourage writing as well so that's it's not always seen as a chore.

I thought about setting up e-mail accounts (with as much privacy settings as I can set up!) so they can e-mail back and forth with each other and with their grandparents and older cousin. Obviously, to each other it would be super silly stuff but they'd need to reign it in when talking to Grandma!

Would this be a good idea to encourage composition? (I also think 6yo doesn't like the physical part of writing b/c it's not fast enough for him.)

Other ideas are welcome, they do need to be sneaky as my boys know very quickly what's "fun" vs. what's "Mom's latest idea to get us to write more".

thanks!
Shannon L.

Do they know how to keyboard well? If not, I'd start with typing software so they develop good habits. There are plenty of options that are fun. I'd personally have no trouble making that mandatory for 10 minutes a day during the summer.

You may also want to take a look at the book Games for Writing by Peggy Kaye. It has a lot of fun ideas. http://www.amazon.com/Games-Writing-Playful-Child-Learn/dp/0374524270

Thanks--they have keyboarding at school but haven't really learned to type--my speed still fascinates them. They start school on Monday, we are in year round public here. Thanks for the link!

Shannon L.

With our DS7, we had him start his own blog about his favorite topic, Minecraft. He doesn't write on it as much as I'd like, but with encouragement, he will write about exciting new releases of the game and what he's working on. We used a free wordpress blog.

I welcome other sneaky ideas too...Mine DS skipped 1st (which apparently was a big writing practice year), and he has always hated writing (mechanics and handwriting both).

We just did what St. Pauli suggests!

But writing is harder- because DS struggles with handwriting, not just creative writing. I always make him write thank you notes by hand for any gift he receives and he's not allowed to open said gift until thank you note is written. I'm mean like that :-) I often trick him into writing the grocery list, pretend my hands are full with a bunch of stuff and ask him to take a message down for me or have him write a note to my parents to ask them to do something for him.

It's getting harder in a world where nobody he knows as adults ever has to really write anything!

Grocery Lists, Birthday Party Lists, Friend's Telephone Number Lists.

to teach handwriting - Handwriting without tears

to teach composition - 6+1 writting traits, Mom reads the book, then introduces the vocabulary, and then let the literay analysis begin. My son earned a big read question mark on his 'writing practice' at school with the sentence to illustrate the word 'breaks' in 1st grade.

"The TV show 'Blue's Clues' breaks the fourth wall."

Yeah, I had no idea he was gifted at the time - he just seemed to love it when I told him interesting tidbits - his eyes got so big and fixed on me, it just encouraged me!
Me: 'Look honey, 'Steve' is talking right to the audience! In my college class theater class they call that 'breaking the 4th wall - because there is usually an imaginary wall between the actors and the audience that the characters pretend to not be able to see us through, see?'

In the begining I thought DS was gifted because I filled his head with all these oddball thoughts. Only later did I try it with his friends and realize that most little noggins rebel at that sort of treatment.

You can also post stories here, and show the kiddos all our kudos.

Smiles,
Grinity

It's not so much that my oldest can't write, he actually prides himself on his neat handwriting, it's composing paragraphs, etc. He can do a wonderful job for school, seems to like actually dreaming up the story, etc. but talks about hating writing afterwards. He's done well in his writing class, I just don't see any extracurricular writing, no journaling, few notes, etc. Will this just come with time?

My youngest likes to write but is just 6 so his mechanical ability is still stifling his creativity. He is very, very quick and I think maybe teaching him to type would help him get the words out fast enough. I know I no longer write much b/c typing is much faster.

I like the blog idea too, thanks for the website. I am concerned about exposing them on the internet so I want to be careful.

Shannon L.

I encourage my kids to write reminder notes like school supplies or groceries I should remember and Notes for Dad to let him know we went to the park.

Do you kids like to draw? Words can be added to pictures. You might try leaving some inspirational books around. I have best results with just one or 2 appealing books at a time, rather than a stack. If you just pick up a book to read they might just come over to share it. If you make a book they might like to get involved.

More Library or web for ideas: write songs and plays, video tape a story board acted out, Poetry magnets, comics strips, book making, writing prompts, journals (nature, trip or summer), card making, poetry, letter writing, post cards. You might get a rhyming dictionary.

http://www.shelsilverstein.com/pdf/poetry.pdf (make a poetry puzzle, like word magnets)

http://www.loreenleedy.com/
The Furry News: How to make a Newspaper
Look at My Book: How Kids Can Make Terrific Books
Messages in the Mailbox writing letters
Look at My Book: How Kids Can Write and Illustrate Terrific Books

http://www.eduplace.com/tales/
similar to Mad libs

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ make comics

http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/poetry/poetry_engine.htm#

http://www.shelsilverstein.com/html/Teachers.html

Library mouse / Daniel Kirk (My kids made their own little library at one time. This book might encourage book writing)

You Can Write a Story! : A Story-Writing Recipe for Kids by Bullard, Lisa; Melmon, Deborah H.

Cartooning : the only cartooning book you'll ever need to be the artist you've always wanted to be / Art Roche.

http://www.klutz.com/kid/express-yo...pnav_kid_express-yourself///nav/txtl////

http://www.americangirlpublishing.com/advice/beyourbest/WritingSmarts.aspx

Creative Writing By Children
The Print Magazine for Kids Who Love to Read. Established in 1973, Stone Soup is the leading publisher of children�s writing and art in the English-speaking world.
www.stonesoup.com

This should keep you busy for the whole summer.

Keep us posted on what works. This is a great thread. (I enjoyed the diversion in finding all of this)

Great suggestions!

I bought a stylus for my iPad and have my son draw in one of my paint apps or write notes in the Bamboo app. He is intrigued with the technology and will embrace this activity quickly.

OK... my situation is different as my son is MATH. But I got creative b/c he needs to get MORE reading/writing in. so....

one of our discipline techniques has been... get ready -

I purchased the entire 26 book series of the "Help Me Be Good" books.

When my children show behavior that we would otherwise give consequence for... they have to pick the appropriate book, read it aloud then complete a worksheet.

The books are a normal 2-4th reading level and about 22 pages. (Way easy for gifted readers but perfect for that developmental age in terms of social learning practices/skills) The text is on one page and cartoons on the other... but kids love flipping through them.

They have to write out the worksheet which has questions:
1. What happened (that I had to read the book)
2. What did I learn from the story
3. What can I do differently next time

They only complete it when they have sentences that reflect good writing - complete sentences... capitalization, punctuation.

kills 3 birds with one stone - discipline, reading, writing!

I like this a lot!

I'm a former K/4 teacher, and the issue of writing is one that comes up a lot at this age. I always suggested creating a writing corner at home like this one from when my son was five:

http://teachingmybabytoread.blog.com/2011/02/28/creating-a-writing-corner/

You want to be sure to stock the writing corner with lots of cool supplies including stationary, stamps, and address labels. Creating a personal dictionary can also help:

http://teachingmybabytoread.blog.com/2011/03/02/personal-dictionary/

hmmmm DD8 has an issue with the writing and it has become to focus of her refusal to go along with the class.

I had no idea that 1st was such a big year for that...her 1st grade teacher was totally useless for her, so that might be part of it...and I think she has some perfectionism. AND...it doesn't help that she reads at a much higher level. I think she thinks she should be writing like what she reads and it frustrates her, but I don't actually know.

I'd really welcome some ideas on how to figure out what part of this is the real problem so I could make suggestions to the teacher...

She likes to draw and has indicated she would prefer writing on her own topic for classroom journaling instead of what the teacher says. In class, she seems to have a hard time getting started then it goes downhill the more the teacher pushes her. Then the work comes home where she might put up a little resistance, but it usually gets done with little pain. She usually does perfectly on the daily proof reading and editing exercises they do. She doesn't seem to mind making birthday cards for her friends or writing notes. She has produced writing plenty of times on her own, poems and a short story. It's such an issue at school that I have been afraid to make her practice more at home. I don't want her to dislike home the way she does school...

Her problem is not ability to write, creatively or correctly. I don't think it's a motor issue either, as her craft skills are quite good. Maybe its an organizational issue or a processing one? Or is it a rebellion against writing 5 sentances in 10 minutes because they would be "simple" sentances? Like she is unable to make herself do work she considers "too easy"?

In my high school Spanish class the teachers explain that for our Oral Reports, we weren't allowed to do the 'Beethoven trick.'

She explained the some students memorized a few paragraphs about Beethoven, and then, no matter what the topic, showed of their speaking skills by relating back to what they had already memorized, no matter how off topic.

For example, if they were to talk about Airplanes, the Student might say: "There were no Airplanes at the time of Beethoven, Beethoven was born in ......"

So, one idea is to just talk to the teacher and find out what her objectives are for in class writing, and see if you can win permission for your DD to write on her own topics as long as she is doing X,Y, or Z.

If that doesn't work, practice totally wild and silly ways to segue from the teachers topic to your DD's favorite topic. My son seemed to like to write about anything as long as he could throw in a few jokes about cheese.

I'd also read the book: 6+1 writing traits because it puts learning to write in a totally different light than the 'copy edit' only approach I was taught with in elementary school. If you point out that she made an excellent word choice in her at home activities, that confidence will carry over to school. It sounds to me like your DD is worried that she won't 'do it right' for school. Is that part of it?

Grinity

Maybe it's just being 8? Fourth grade apparently requires far more writing than 3rd did, and my DD8 has really struggled with it this year. She's physically capable of getting the writing done. When she's writing of her own volition, she writes and writes without complaint. For schoolwork, she stares blankly or goes around and around making fiddly little things perfect while totally failing to make any progress on the main task.

The other day, she was working on writing sentences using her spelling words, and had erased everything on the page and started over so many times that I finally had a screaming tantrum and picked the words for her. ("Valuable. Write a sentence with valuable." *kid writes* "Lovable. Write.") Later that day, she said that having me pick the words was wonderful and could we do the spelling like that every week.

Too many choices to overcome the lack of inherent interest, maybe?

AlexsMom-that is her EXACTLY, except this has been going on almost since the beginning of school . It spills over to math now where they ask the child to "explain" how they got an answer (don't even get me started on that)...and if I tried to tell her what to write, she will absolutely NOT write.
SO far, the only success we have had this year was when I told her to brainstorm 5 ideas ("What makes a good friend") then I let her do the "writing" on the computer. I know she can't do all her work this way and it still took her a long time to decide what she wanted to write, but at least she was doing it and not having a fit.