Any ideas on making writing fun for 8 year old boy who hates it?

[farmgirl]

My son has been labeled as ADD(distracted, not hyper) by his teachers and he is not exactly thriving in public school. He is good at math and science, but is under grade level in reading and absolutely hates to write. He also has great difficulty spelling even simple words. I am either going to have to teach him after school or homeschool him. So I need ideas or materials to help him. He doesn't want to be homeschooled. Has anybody had success with a similar problem with writing?

BTY I am starting homeschooling for my five year old daughter next week. She was looking forward to kindergarten so much and now she doesn't want to go. I am a little nervous about this!

[NewWorldOrder]

Have you tried Handwriting without Tears?

http://www.hwtears.com/workbookdesign.html

It's especially designed for poor writers.

For spelling, someone mentioned in another thread a spelling program. Sequential Spelling. She seems to be having a lot of success with it.

http://www.sonlight.com/RL50.html

[lisaann]

My ds really resisted writing for a long time. I would let him write on a white board that had the lines on it. It was fun for him to be able to do it and choose different colors. Not sure that would help much with homework that the teacher needs to see though. :heh

From the little bit of info. you gave my guess would be his fine motor skills are just not developed enough for writing to be easy yet.

[Wally]

Our DS is moderately ADHD. It can be a challenge. Try to find out what he likes - deeper interest. We had him come up with inventions -drawings -lego then write about them. He devoured the Redwall series. Have him write his own adventures. You may be a mazed. Try to have him write short-stories in order to work on spelling and grammar. Once the edit is done ----the story can be shared with others.

[farmgirl]

Thanks! He does love building Bionicles so maybe he could write bionicle adventures. Its worth a try! He still writes a lot of letters backwards so I think he hates writing because he has to think about every letter, figuring out if its facing the right way. Then he has to figure out how to spell the word and usually gets it wrong without help. Then he starts daydreaming because its more fun, is out of time at school and feels defeated.:( Then he brings it home and has to do it on top of his other homework, leaving no time for the important things in life like bionicles. By the time homework is done we both feel like crying.:ohno

[KitsapGirl]

My son has been labeled as ADD(distracted, not hyper) by his teachers and he is not exactly thriving in public school. He is good at math and science, but is under grade level in reading and absolutely hates to write. He also has great difficulty spelling even simple words. I am either going to have to teach him after school or homeschool him. So I need ideas or materials to help him. He doesn't want to be homeschooled. Has anybody had success with a similar problem with writing?

BTY I am starting homeschooling for my five year old daughter next week. She was looking forward to kindergarten so much and now she doesn't want to go. I am a little nervous about this!

My son is the same...with the addition of anxiety. One thing I noticed very early on is the amount of detail he has when he's talking. How crazy some of his stories are, and how bright he is. My guess is that your son is also exhibiting these things.

What we did for my son is we gave him a tape recorder. He recorded his stories, and reports. It seems that his mouth can sometimes keep up with his mile-a-minute mind. So him speaking into the recorder captured the essence of what he wanted to write. Then he would transcribe his own words onto paper. Then he would edit it to make it suitable for submission to his teacher.

I know it sounds like a lot, and it sounds difficult, but believe me...it works. The bonus is that he can use this technique his whole life. The schools accept it, and have even allowed him to take the state test (WASL).

Since he has ADD, I'm also certain that your has a number of "gifts" that other children lack. I'd encourage you to seek out his abilities.

My son has an amazing ability to memorise. This helps him in school, and he's off the charts in reading, grammar, spelling, math, science, but he is way behind in anything social. This too is normal.

[topekaclark]

I have two who are ADD.

I pulled my youngest daughter last year (3rd grade now) from school because the school refuse to address the problem. That's a whole another issue, won't get into it. The school wanted to hold her back even though she excelled at math but was a very poor reader and writer. When I had her tested she was on 1st (beginning) reading level and K in writing fluency.

I took her back to beginning of 2nd grade last year, I'm glad to say she is doing wonderfully, she's not where she needs to be at for grade level in reading but is improving daily. She is starting to read chapter books and loves it. She has blossom since I hs.

I started her out on phonics and worked with blends:

Ex: ar,

she would learn the sound/blend then she would have to come up with words like:

Star, far, car, etc.

The Internet has alot of sites with worksheets that can be helped for age/grade level.

She improved a great deal when we went back to the basics and taught her from ground up. In the beginning it would take a LOOOOONGGGG time to read a Dr. Seuss book. Now she flies through them. It was painful for me seeing her struggle and being patience enough to let her finish.

With her reading program now, She reads 2 pages, I read 1: this way she won't become overwhelmed.

As far as writing goes, that will come when he has confidence with reading.

I started her journal writing, not grading it and I put up a list of frequently misspelled words for her (that she spells wrong).

I also started her with pen-pals to encourage writing letters. They are simple but she is excited about.

Speaking of Pen pals if anyone is interested in this please let me know, I have 2 children, dd ages 8 & 11. (didn't mean to change subject there).

If you want any advice, we are here for you.

I promise with your son, it will come my oldest didn't learn to read till 3rd grade. We just took one day at a time and built up his confidence.

Hope this helps and not too wordy.

[farmgirl]

Thank you so much for these suggestions! We're going to to try many of them. :hug

[Deepcallstodeep]

Try having your child write in shaving cream or in sand, just throw down a tarp or an old vinyl tablecloth and spray on the shaving cream and practice writing vocab words with a finger. Your 8 yr old might be too old for this, but my son's first grade class does this and the kids love it... they are thinking they get to muck around in shaving cream and they are really learning to spell... something about the kinesthetic experience of writing with their finger makes them recall the words better later when they write with a pencil in their journals or writing assignments. And it keeps the easily-distracted kids more involved, because it's fun!!!:)

[Itiswell]

Hi everyone,

I have a son with learning challenges as well. Some things that have worked for us...

For handwriting nothing can beat "Handwriting Without Tears"...

Spelling has special challenges because it is sequential learning. We love "Spelling Power". You can find a great description at Rainbow Resources:

http://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?sid=1191035305-533894&id=002784

A new book is pricey, but it has been around for a long time and you can usually find one used for $20-$25. One of their suggestions is to have the student write the word with their eyes closed on a piece of velvet. The same idea as the shaving cream, as far as incorporating tactical senses, but not as messy!

I love IEW- Institute for Excellence in Writing. A huge investment to start- $248, but it will last all the way through high school. It is based on learning to write through imitation, very effective with reluctant writers (after all, isn't that the way we learn to do everything else in life?). Again, here is a description of the product:

http://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?sid=1191035305-533894&id=016670

Hope this helps,
Terri