Is it a hand writing problem, a writing / summarizing problem or both?
Definitely hothouse handwriting if that has any part, we made massive gains in a year by doing 10 mins a day (my DD has a physical handwriting problem that will never go away but still made huge progress). Writing is proving somewhat trickier. Her use of paragraphing, spelling, grammar, etc are well beyond grade but her pieces are still quite simple and short. She struggles enormously to plan (think of?) what to write, reducing the load on her rain from handwriting now being easier has really made it easier to make progress with actual writing.
I'm not really sure what the problem is. Her writing (technique/formation) is poor, will mix capital and lowercase, makes her letters in odd ways, etc...
When she has a homework assignment that involves reading an article and writing about it/summarizing she does pretty well. For homework a few weeks ago they had to read an article (
http://www.timeforkids.com/news/history-labor-day/12426) about Labor Day and write a few sentences summarizing what Labor Day is/why we have it. This is what she wrote:
"Labor Day is a last summer break day to relax. Men and women and small children were forced to work even if they were sick. They were paid very little and tired of long hours and very dangerous conditions. Labor Day is not just a day off. It represents a very important victory. The holiday is a celebration of the social and economic workers."
She wrote the bare minimum, whereas many of her classmates will write pages and pages.
Another assignment last week she had to write about her favorite season:
"My favorite season is winter because you can dive into snow like you dive into the pool. It is in December, January, February, and March. I like to ski with my American Girl Doll. I like to eat the snow and sled. Sometimes there are snow storms that can be really horrible. I like the winter since you can have popsicles whenever you want because the popsicles are the snow."
It took a lot of convincing to write this even. I'm trying to get her to make her sentences longer using conjunctions and not use "it" over and over. I don't know what is considered age appropriate, let alone gifted level work. It just seems ho-hum imo, especially considering the arguing, whining, and effort it takes to get her to do this.
