Howler,
You raise a really good issue. I do think that maturity is a big part of his lack of productivity--but he also really seems to have a lot of trouble doing any kind of writing work, even if it's about something that interests him. Writing tasks go much more easily if he chooses the topic, but even then, he struggles. Maybe it is just that writing is inherently harder than speaking, but if your only interface with him was writing, you would not have a clue about how well he can express himself. Perhaps part of that is because he is verbally precocious, but my sense is that numerous other kids in his class who are not as verbally precocious as he is write better. Furthermore, there have been plenty of times that he has been motivated to, say, finish his writing work and he hasn't managed to do it--and has been really upset because the upshot was that it wound up interfering with a play date (for instance). One time he wanted to stay back from play practice, which he loves, because he really did not want to take the writing home, which he knew he'd have to do if he didn't get it done in school. Yet he couldn't manage to get it done in the ample amount of time (for most kids) that he had for it.
In other words, I really think he has some kind of challenge associated with writing-related productivity in addition to the motivation/interest component.
Anyway, you put your finger on one of my biggest parenting conundrums: How much of his school "issues" have to do with motivation and how much have to do with something else? There are times when he just hunkers down and writes. The quality is still not good (or anyway, it's not remotely commensurate with how he thinks and talks), but it does get done. Other times, tears.
And of course there is this processing speed issue, at least as measured by the WISC, which is probably true qualitatively if not quantitatively. (Ie., maybe he's not really in the fifth percentile, but he does take a long time to think about things sometimes, even if the product of his thinking winds up being extremely sophisticated.) Of course, other times he just "knows" things in a heartbeat--he immediately grasped base 7 numbers, sat up in bed when he was three and said "when you are right in the middle of the merry-go-round, you don't feel any force," and so on. (I love it that most everyone here probably has similar stories!)
