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I was just informed that my DS7 would be bumped up into the GT LA program at his school. They decided that his reluctance to write would not be a problem. They think the program would be a better fit than standard 3rd grade LA because of his placement scores. DS7 does not 'like' to write so there is a lot of resistance and that is his main complaint about school. His handwriting is fine. They agreed to allow me to transcribe his assignments and he would then be expected to copy and edit. So I was just wondering at what age reluctant writers start to write and how much should I push this with him? Anyone have stories of this?

I hope someone with answers or suggestions answers. I am in the same boat with my ds7 who is in 3rd grade. Handwriting is fine but I have to remind him to be neat. He can tell you this long story that would be 3-6 pages long but when it comes to putting all those words on paper the best I could hope is about 5 sentences. If I push him, especially on an assignment that he is required to do, he has to write a page.

When my ds9 was in 2nd grade (last yr) he was not too into printing neatly and we tried to encourage him by saying this is an area you can challenge yourself to get better. Well he never got too into it until they switched to cursive and his writing went from satisfactory to outsanding. It was beautiful. Now begginning 3rd Grade he says he hates hanwriting. I say somethings in school are just hard work and not fun. With practice you will get better. My handwriting could use improvement. I tell him I wished I worked harder on it when I was in school. I'm not sure how this helps. Is there a way to make it more meaningful to him? My son's thoughts are very fast so I think it might be frustrating that the handwriting does not keepup with the brain.

I believe that is the issues right there. He has these deep thoughts that come all at once and he is unable to sort thru them and get them all down on paper. I edit for my job so I can type really fast and get them down for him. We are using a venn diagram and other such tools to begin organizing his thoughts on his own. On tests he gets extremely nervous and makes those careless mistakes so I have been working really hard on getting him to go over his tests twice, the first time to make sure he answered all the questions, the second to double check his answers. I think it is a process but I am wondering when the process "clicks".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/

I would like to know when it writing clicks too.

One suggestion- have him learn to type. the above site is fun.

We are just getting through this with DS7 now. He's grade skipped this year into yr4 and the writing pressures have definitely increased.

He has had two major writing projects so far (one research based and one creative). The research-based one caused a lot of tension in our house with deadlines looming, his anxiety about not getting it done evident and my eventual lack of patience at dragging it out of him (I knew it was in there - just very hard for him to sort through the many quickly flowing ideas and get them on the page.)

I organised him a writing tutor (not cheap but WELL worth the expense).

The tutor quickly recognised his love of drawing and used that as the starting point for whatever they were writing. The tutor had patience I didn't have and because the tutor was an 'expert' and I'm just the mum who doesn't know anything my son listened.

The tutor worked with him a lot in planning what to write.

While his second project still took a lot of time and patience, my son felt more equipped to deal with it. He handed in a fantastically creative piece of writing, on time, and mostly under his own steam. (alexfamtx it was 3 A4 notebook pages long!! Prevously he'd write as little as possible)

It was a real eye opener for me because while I suspected he could write; I finally have the evidence and he's just SO proud.
We have now cancelled the tutor as they have got us over the hump and it has served its purpose.

Might be worth a shot.

You might want to search some of the discussions on this site about dysgraphia. There are several.

I just finished watching a "webinar" called "Dyslexia and Writing Challenges in Gifted Children" put on by Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide. I have never thought my son was dyslexic - he reads non-stop, but he does have dysgraphia. Their talk made me look at both of these labels differently. These are the people who wrote "The Mislabeled Child." Personally, I think a lot of 7 year old boys would not be expected to write a lot, but if the problem persists, you might check into what they have to say.

THANKS onthegomom for the great site link....we have been trying to find a fun learning to type program...most of the ones we have found have been REALLY dry and boring. My DS6 has dyspraxia and writing has been an enormous issue with him - and his brain works faster than his fingers- like today - he wanted to sit down and "write" a book (he has written over 30 of these kinds of books) he sat with me for over an hour and told me his chapter book as I typed it for him - he came up with a pretty awesome story complete with a beginning/middle/end that was over 12 pages long- but there is NO way that his teacher would ever get to see this side of him because there is no one to sit down and scribe for him :-(

My son saw me checking out the site tonight and he wanted to know what it was...needless to say one hour later and I had to pull him away from the computer..he finished the whole first lesson section and I was in SHOCK when I saw just how well he was doing and how fast he picked it up! So thanks a ton for the great link!

It is so great he likes the typing class.

I wish my son would get into that. He loves creating stories but hates the too slow handwriting. I hope he will come around to getting ambishous with typing. I hoping some how he could do this for more challenge at school. It would be better than some of the unneeded review an that as an option maybe motivational. He has let me type for him and the he does edits. He also draws for his stories.

Our ds9 has similar reluctance to write, even though his handwriting and typing are getting pretty darn good. He loves to draw and this will often be the start of a story or at least a 'story line' that he'll be able to tell me about in great detail. Last night he asked me to help him with a book he wants to make, and I asked him what he meant, he said, help with the writing and maybe the drawing, the printing & binding. I helped with the writing. He's writing a book about magical creatures, and has a very large number of ideas, he was practically shaking and his hands were just very 'fiddly', moving a lot.
I reminded him about making an outline and just scratching out quick notes to capture the main points of an idea, so this helped, but still I did the writing. Maybe he is anxious about forgetting some detail before it's on paper, but I think excitement is probably a better description; he was just so happy and interested in getting this stuff out of his head and onto some paper.

Are other people seeing this sort of welling up of energy, which, while clearly the source of the cool ideas, might also be the reason it is nearly impossible to write?