As a former writing teacher, I'm thrilled that your son is learning to write drafts now! Brainstorming, prewriting, key ideas, revision...all things I had to slave away to teach 19yo college students. If it helps, feel free to tell your son that I said they're all mandatory for the good writing of anything, and that he's going to be way ahead of the curve on that score if he learns it now!
Not much help
Actually it's all very helpful! I appreciate your sharing with me. The competition with me is something I'll consider working up to. Though I'm not sure he'd be all that into it yet, he might get there if I'm patient, and it's a good tool to have in the old toolbox.
It is possible that it may just be a personality thing instead of an age thing though. Our DS6 is not generally a very competitive kid. There are exceptions, but I'd say he's usually more self-motivated than competitive, so I don't know if competition will work for him.
The Aleks pie pieces are another sort of reward, limited and esoteric though they might be, so it's pretty clear to me that I'll want to do something of that nature. Helpful!
Did you do any math drill when your DS was younger? I'm still musing about when is the "right" time to press the issue...
The writing issue sounds challenging. I don't think we adults usually think about how much is involved in getting thoughts down on paper. Typing first and writing second is brilliant! Did you come up with that? What a good idea.
Happily, our DS6 so far shows no such issues. He's a natural speller and his handwriting isn't bad, I don't think. (Though I confess that I'm pretty lenient about such things compared to the elementary teacher he had who marked every tiny slip over or under a line... If it's close and he practices regularly, I'm usually not too nitpicky about it.)
The drum lessons sound very brave of you! How is that going?
Anyway, thanks for sharing! I really appreciate it!
