Teaching Writing Without Tears

I am a writer. Writing comes easy to me. I actually love teaching children how to write. While I do not take credit for the fact that my eldest daughter writes at a high school level, I do take credit for the fact that I had enough sense to teach her how to write. She loved it. She writes extremely well. Then came along her 8 year old sister. M is an artist. She can draw pictures and describe them. When we started her in our classroom, she drew the pictures and wrote. Back then, what she wrote and how she wrote wasn't important. Only that she wrote. She didn't mind writing as long as it was writing what she wanted to. She especially hated being given a topic. The problem was I rarely understood the "kid-writing" she was producing. I assumed it would get better. But it never did. While I could understand words, she never composed a sentence properly. She'd write gibberish. But to her it wasn't. Then we'd have to create the work sent to her cyberschool. This was more painful than a tooth extraction. I have a temper and I'd time her out--more to calm me down. I'd yell and beg, and plead and I'll admit I never felt like a really good person. Much less a great teacher. One of the reasons we chose the cyber route over the traditional route was for the support to bounce off ideas of how to fix the problem. But, in the end, it's a system. We could not drop writing. She didn't have an IEP. When we pursued an IEP, the fact that she got good grades came into play. And testing indicated she was proficient. But they don't test writing. Not until 5th grade state standard tests. I started to go out onto facebook asking for help. I bought comprehension and vocabulary books. We were now not only doing the requirements of what the cyberschool curriculum entailed, but also an additional 2 hours of lessons. Please keep in mind I am schooling 3 kids and have an additional 2 year old. This only frustrated me more. I wasn't getting anything I needed to get done. In addition, I was barely spending time with the 2 year old. I was having the 5 year old play with him more and more. And, boy do they know how to get into trouble! I asked for help again. And this time I was asked about Title I. However, Title I would not take away work from her but add an additional work. This was part of the entire problem. M has trouble with memory. While the workbooks and activities built her comprehension up to nearly a 7th grade level...she still has a hard time with retention and recall. At the time I didn't realize this was a major part of what we just called "low memory". Now, as I type this, it makes a little more sense. I struggled with the fact I could sit down with K and explain the rules and walk away. When I came back, she'd have a composition written up. I was frustrated because M wasn't like that. She couldn't have me just walk away. The school requested that I have her write something unedited by me. This time I gave her a topic about school. She wrote 4 sentences and had maybe one spelling error. It did take her a long time to write her ideas. She could write a sentence but then couldn't think of anything else. I couldn't believe it? She has an easy time if you ask her to write a "how to" essay though.

The trouble I finally pinpointed is she can not visualize her words. Then, she cannot visualize her sentences. When you ask her a question, she can answer in complete sentences. She's never had trouble with answering questions in complete sentences based on her reading. This baffled me. She also never had trouble with dictation. I remembered dreading the dictation assignments when we started but each time she enjoyed writing them out. At first I had thought the act of writing was the problem because when she was asked to write in her journal she'd burst into tears and claim with a vengeance it was "too hard!".  I concluded quickly the act of writing is not her problem which I initially thought.  I started to use handwriting without tears and she started to beg to do the assignments. I quickly concluded the act of handwriting was not her trouble. While she can get sloppy, she does have beautiful handwriting. She also always loved free writing. If I asked her to write a story in her journal she'd cry. But I could often find her snuggled up writing in her journal away from school assignments. I have peaked in her journal and her writing was repetitive. She would write the same thought over and over again. In her journal she's also write the same story over and over again with variations. Here's an example of her work at the beginning of the year:

"Once upon a time thier was a girl name Maddy. Maddy like to go to redraoben and redlopster. One day she lost her dog at red lopster then when they pickup. Her dog and her mom said lit eat her Maddy. Maddy's dad said okay. Then they ate lunch at red roden. Then went home. Maddy went to the park and went to the swings. Then when it was time to go home she had a friend come over. They had a sleepover. Then the sleepver. Then in the morning they ate bretfest then went outside.

 Her work was riddled with mistakes. It sounded gibberish. But she wrote sentences.

It frustrated me because I knew she could write.

Two days later I assigned her the topic "Country Child" and wrote out a series of questions as if I was interviewing her to help her brainstorm. This is what she wrote:

"I am a country child. I live in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. My house is a 1920s red brick house. It is across the street from the park. I love my house house because we have a playsit. One good thing about living in the country is that it's guite. Another thing is that I have freinds in the country."

Now, I was even more confused. The questions made that much of a difference? But as the year progressed and I tried to get her to do more independent work she would burst into tears. I don't remember ever having a lesson day with composition writing that didn't result in tears. I knew when we spent time, slowed her down she would write well. We could never easily get 3-4 sentences out of her but we could. I hated having to sit down next to her to produce the work. It sounds selfish but I would spend an average of more time with her than her siblings. if asked questions she could answer them. She could write them down. however, she spent days on one composition and I didn't have that kind of patience or time. It wasn't fair.

The question I kept asking myself is: Is she lazy? She dealt well with structure. She knew sequencing. Or at least it appeared she did. She definitely did better when she was given the questions and then asked to construct them into a paragraph. When given free thought, her work grew worse with mechanics and problems.

Desperate, I ordered a supplement. Bauer's "Writing with Ease". She basically hit me over the head and reminded me that writing should be a step-by step approach. That creating an inarticulate idea and making that idea into words, AND then taking the idea and making it into words on paper are two difficult and very different operations. Can you pat your head, rub your tummy and talk? If practiced you could. But most likely it may be difficult. However, we are asking our young students to write before they are ready! What is my end goal? To make M a proficient writer and ready for college. Why do I teach her rather than send her to school? Because I don't feel kids are robots. They aren't all on the same path and can do the same things at the same time. Not any of my children learned to walk at the right age. Neither did they learn to talk, roll over, or build block towers. I threw out the baby milestone book and laughed. My children were well above advanced based on when they performed those tasks (with minor derailments...we did have a few language delays). M was advanced based on those books. Until she reached preschool. Then we noticed she was struggling. She wasn't reading by the end of kindergarten like she should. But neither was I. However, I kept feeling beaten up by a system. My child wasn't performing adequately! I must do my tasks within the box...make her, a beautiful round peg, fit into a square hole. She wasn't going to.

However, I wanted to work at a little more advanced level, doing what was expected of her, but still teaching her the skills she needed. So here's our steps:
1. We choose a topic
2. We start a conversations
3. I ask her questions. The point is to get her used to explaining to me in detail what she means. For example:
She would say: My sister is Hannah.
I would ask: What does Hannah look like?
She would say: She has brown hair and brown eyes.
I would then asked: Anything else about her.
M will stare at me: No.
I would then ask: Is she nice to you?
She would say: Yes.
I would then say: Okay, can you tell me a sentence about how she is nice?
She would say: She is nice to me because she let me borrow her favorite dress.

And this is what I get:
My sister is Hannah. She has brown hair and brown eyes. She is nice to me because she let me borrow her favorite dress.

4. I dictate to her what she just told me. This is about what we get back:
My sistr is Hannah. She has brown hair and brown eye. She is nice to me because she let me boro her favrit dres.

I do not edit her. But that's because I am instructed not to. Now, if I was not in cyber school I would edit her. But I think it is because the school wants to see where she is...since they don't see all her work other than what is on a test.

If she is not writing a composition for a test, we will edit. We will go over the rules she failed to write, do assignments and sentences based on them.

 We put this away.

 Then the next day we will get out her work:

5. She must read it aloud to me. She catches herself often. She edits herself. And corrects it.

6. She writes the final draft.

Now, we have a completed composition. I think this worked on creating a great composition. It helped her with areas she lacked. It used different senses to edit and write. She will eventually learn to visualize her words.