Writing in elementary school

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a fourth grader and it seems that this year the Teacher is starting to actually teach how to write. They have been discussing how to approach different parts of a paragraph and how to generate ideas, what types of words they can use to make a sentence more interesting. I have noticed a real improvement in DS ability to write and quality of what he is writing. There still is not as much emphasis on punctuation, capitalization, and spelling as I would like. I asked the Teacher about that in a conference and she said that writing is really complicated and that it is over whelming for kids to be focused on everything. Her focus is on developing thoughts and the complexity of those thoughts and when kids are comfortable with that tackle more of the process errors. I do see papers coming home with punctuation corrections and capitalization corrections. We are handling spelling corrections at home. We ask Ds if he can spell a word, he spells it correctly and we remind him he needs to do that when he is writing. Or proof read his writing and correct mistakes that he finds.

It does seem like writing is improving. The impression I have gotten from all of my sons Teachers is that they are just trying to get the kids writing with confidence first and then correct the grammar and spelling mistakes. They don't want the kids to get so worried about making those mistakes that they don't write at all.

This approach makes no sense to me. Why wouldn’t teachers want to work on things like capitalization, spacing, and punctuation while kids are still writing very simple sentences? Solidify the skills at the sentence level so that these things are automatic, then start working on putting ideas together at the paragraph and whole paper level. It is very hard to assess longer papers when sentence level writing is a mess. If you get bogged down in editing sentences you can’t evaluate the ideas and organization because the writing is too hard to read. I don’t necessarily blame the fourth grade teacher but this just seems like a failure of the first through third grade teaching approach.

Because some kids struggle with getting their thoughts on paper as it is, when you add in extra steps (punctuation and capitalization) you make it harder to get thoughts on paper. That is what the Teacher explained to us. The idea is to build confidence with putting thoughts on paper and then focus on the specifics.

Why does very early writing practice have to be about getting thoughts on paper? You can use sentence copying or dictation as a way to work on basics of capitalization, spacing and punctuation. This doesn’t have to be the main focus but it can be a part of early writing instruction. Not all writing has to be creative. Or if you actually do spelling lists you can have kids write sentences with their spelling words in them. Like three or four sentences total each with one of the spelling words. If a child has trouble thinking of how to put one of their spelling words into a single sentence in second grade there is a bigger problem going on. If a child is confidence in putting their ideas on paper maybe it’s because they don’t even have a grasp of basic sentence writing yet I need to work on it when there isn’t any pressure to generate their own ideas.

Totally agree.

+2. It’s the same reason we need to drill multiplication facts. If kids don’t have a solid grasp of those before they start doing long division, long division will tax their cognitive load and it’ll get overwhelming.

I have just been doing handwriting without tears over and over again (10 minutes a day and when we fill out one workbook we start another) as he listens to audiobooks, and it has made other writing assignments so much less frustrating.

Oh, by the way, I homeschool. I don’t think that parents whose kids are in school should have to make their kids do this. It’s absurd that there is this idea that teachers should outsource the principals that lead to academic success to parents, especially when they don’t even make that expectation explicit. There really is no reason teachers can’t spend 20 minutes a day doing math fact drills and handwriting. Especially when around fourth grade you see an educational success split among kids of different socioeconomic status. It’s so unfair to the kids that don’t have parents who will/can teach them fundamental education concepts.

It is infuriating when you think about it. I can’t understand why many school systems (it’s not just FCPS) are punting on making sure kids have basic skills needed for later success. Like they’re so obsessed with kids being “21st century problem solvers” that they skip right to projects without making sure there’s foundational knowledge first. I blame harebrained administrators. They get enamored with ideas and won’t listen to teachers who say it doesn’t work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

She could teach her kids about proper nouns, sure, if she learned how to teach it, made her kid sit down after a full day of instruction, and did as many lessons as it required for her kid to learn it.

But why should she have to do that? Her kid goes to *school* and there is no reason teachers can’t do that same thing and teach 25 kids instead of just one.

Oh come on. I agree that parents shouldn't HAVE to teach some of this basic stuff but it is not a huge haul to teach SOME of it. And proper nouns does not require knowing how to teach or require a huge lift at home. And frankly, it can be reinforced while out an about "Campbell's soup", is that a proper noun, Larla?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a fourth grader and it seems that this year the Teacher is starting to actually teach how to write. They have been discussing how to approach different parts of a paragraph and how to generate ideas, what types of words they can use to make a sentence more interesting. I have noticed a real improvement in DS ability to write and quality of what he is writing. There still is not as much emphasis on punctuation, capitalization, and spelling as I would like. I asked the Teacher about that in a conference and she said that writing is really complicated and that it is over whelming for kids to be focused on everything. Her focus is on developing thoughts and the complexity of those thoughts and when kids are comfortable with that tackle more of the process errors. I do see papers coming home with punctuation corrections and capitalization corrections. We are handling spelling corrections at home. We ask Ds if he can spell a word, he spells it correctly and we remind him he needs to do that when he is writing. Or proof read his writing and correct mistakes that he finds.

It does seem like writing is improving. The impression I have gotten from all of my sons Teachers is that they are just trying to get the kids writing with confidence first and then correct the grammar and spelling mistakes. They don't want the kids to get so worried about making those mistakes that they don't write at all.

This approach makes no sense to me. Why wouldn’t teachers want to work on things like capitalization, spacing, and punctuation while kids are still writing very simple sentences? Solidify the skills at the sentence level so that these things are automatic, then start working on putting ideas together at the paragraph and whole paper level. It is very hard to assess longer papers when sentence level writing is a mess. If you get bogged down in editing sentences you can’t evaluate the ideas and organization because the writing is too hard to read. I don’t necessarily blame the fourth grade teacher but this just seems like a failure of the first through third grade teaching approach.

Because some kids struggle with getting their thoughts on paper as it is, when you add in extra steps (punctuation and capitalization) you make it harder to get thoughts on paper. That is what the Teacher explained to us. The idea is to build confidence with putting thoughts on paper and then focus on the specifics.

Why does very early writing practice have to be about getting thoughts on paper? You can use sentence copying or dictation as a way to work on basics of capitalization, spacing and punctuation. This doesn’t have to be the main focus but it can be a part of early writing instruction. Not all writing has to be creative. Or if you actually do spelling lists you can have kids write sentences with their spelling words in them. Like three or four sentences total each with one of the spelling words. If a child has trouble thinking of how to put one of their spelling words into a single sentence in second grade there is a bigger problem going on. If a child is confidence in putting their ideas on paper maybe it’s because they don’t even have a grasp of basic sentence writing yet I need to work on it when there isn’t any pressure to generate their own ideas.

Totally agree.

+2. It’s the same reason we need to drill multiplication facts. If kids don’t have a solid grasp of those before they start doing long division, long division will tax their cognitive load and it’ll get overwhelming.

I have just been doing handwriting without tears over and over again (10 minutes a day and when we fill out one workbook we start another) as he listens to audiobooks, and it has made other writing assignments so much less frustrating.

Oh, by the way, I homeschool. I don’t think that parents whose kids are in school should have to make their kids do this. It’s absurd that there is this idea that teachers should outsource the principals that lead to academic success to parents, especially when they don’t even make that expectation explicit. There really is no reason teachers can’t spend 20 minutes a day doing math fact drills and handwriting. Especially when around fourth grade you see an educational success split among kids of different socioeconomic status. It’s so unfair to the kids that don’t have parents who will/can teach them fundamental education concepts.

It is infuriating when you think about it. I can’t understand why many school systems (it’s not just FCPS) are punting on making sure kids have basic skills needed for later success. Like they’re so obsessed with kids being “21st century problem solvers” that they skip right to projects without making sure there’s foundational knowledge first. I blame harebrained administrators. They get enamored with ideas and won’t listen to teachers who say it doesn’t work.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

Grammar has always been important. So is spelling. And handwriting. It is still being taught in other school districts. Stop acting like this is all new and parents are being unreasonable to expect our kids are taught the basics.

It isn't important to public schools. If it was, it would be tested. What is tested is taught.

Some states do test writing…

How would a standardized test assess a student’s lead or conclusion? Could it assess their use of transition words? Would it be scored by human scorers?

My point was that some states stress being able to write X amount of paragraphs with proper spelling and grammar because it’s on a test.

Should we teach to the test? No. But obviously the things admins allow teachers to spend the most time on are things that will be on state tests such as VA SOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

Grammar has always been important. So is spelling. And handwriting. It is still being taught in other school districts. Stop acting like this is all new and parents are being unreasonable to expect our kids are taught the basics.

It isn't important to public schools. If it was, it would be tested. What is tested is taught.

Some states do test writing…

How would a standardized test assess a student’s lead or conclusion? Could it assess their use of transition words? Would it be scored by human scorers?

My point was that some states stress being able to write X amount of paragraphs with proper spelling and grammar because it’s on a test.

Should we teach to the test? No. But obviously the things admins allow teachers to spend the most time on are things that will be on state tests such as VA SOL.

Yes, they hire humans to score it.

I took the Praxis to teach in VA and knew I passed right away as it was all multiple choice. In my home state every teacher subject test had two essay questions so it takes about a month to get your results back as humans score it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

She could teach her kids about proper nouns, sure, if she learned how to teach it, made her kid sit down after a full day of instruction, and did as many lessons as it required for her kid to learn it.

But why should she have to do that? Her kid goes to *school* and there is no reason teachers can’t do that same thing and teach 25 kids instead of just one.

Oh come on. I agree that parents shouldn't HAVE to teach some of this basic stuff but it is not a huge haul to teach SOME of it. And proper nouns does not require knowing how to teach or require a huge lift at home. And frankly, it can be reinforced while out an about "Campbell's soup", is that a proper noun, Larla?

Have you taught basic elementary principals like proper nouns? It actually isn’t as simple as you’d think. Yes it can be done but teaching anything does indeed require knowing how to teach. And it would be one thing if it was just proper nouns. But many (not all!) teachers and administrators these days think that once they have done a few lessons on a topic, it’s the parent’s job to make sure the concept sticks. This is true of math facts, handwriting, spelling, and many other fundamental topics, sometimes even phonics (😳😳😳).

It’s completely reasonable to expect that a teacher teach these things in school. And in fact that is what has traditionally been done and is done in many places. Those of us who expect our kids to learn these things in school aren’t crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

She could teach her kids about proper nouns, sure, if she learned how to teach it, made her kid sit down after a full day of instruction, and did as many lessons as it required for her kid to learn it.

But why should she have to do that? Her kid goes to *school* and there is no reason teachers can’t do that same thing and teach 25 kids instead of just one.

Oh come on. I agree that parents shouldn't HAVE to teach some of this basic stuff but it is not a huge haul to teach SOME of it. And proper nouns does not require knowing how to teach or require a huge lift at home. And frankly, it can be reinforced while out an about "Campbell's soup", is that a proper noun, Larla?

Shut up with the stupid Larla thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

She could teach her kids about proper nouns, sure, if she learned how to teach it, made her kid sit down after a full day of instruction, and did as many lessons as it required for her kid to learn it.

But why should she have to do that? Her kid goes to *school* and there is no reason teachers can’t do that same thing and teach 25 kids instead of just one.

Oh come on. I agree that parents shouldn't HAVE to teach some of this basic stuff but it is not a huge haul to teach SOME of it. And proper nouns does not require knowing how to teach or require a huge lift at home. And frankly, it can be reinforced while out an about "Campbell's soup", is that a proper noun, Larla?

Basically anybody can teach proper nouns (as long as they understand the concept themselves, but many parents don’t). But it’s not as simple as you’d think. First of all you have to teach what a noun is and you have to teach capital and lowercase letters. Then you have to explain and have your kids remember through various kinds of reinforcement what are proper nouns, which is sometimes weird because of rules like days of the week are but seasons are not. Then you have to teach things that get a little tricky, like doctor is capitalized when it’s part of a title but not when it’s a job, and Mom is a proper noun when it’s used in place of a name but not in other circumstances, etc. And it’s also helpful to know that when proper nouns are used as descriptions they are still capitalized.

And sure this can absolutely be done by a parent. But it’s not all that simple and a teacher is better suited to do it. I’d really rather spend my time with my kids making fun memories with them and having good conversations than teaching them school concepts.

[Anonymous]

Sure anything can be done by a parent but then why have schools? Parents have other things to teach and other responsibilities. And if there is no communication with parents you can be assured they will do less.

[Anonymous]

What I find interesting is that at the high school level my child has a very similar experience to me who also attended the same high school in FCPS. There is less writing but more shorter and collaborative assignments. Perhaps all of the writing from the shorter assignments equals the larger ones but it's different. By high school I had written at least 10 3-5 page papers. I think my child has written one if that. However the rigor is similar with a little less writing and more creativity. Why don't the high school teachers get on the school system for having kids unprepared in this area is beyond me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

She could teach her kids about proper nouns, sure, if she learned how to teach it, made her kid sit down after a full day of instruction, and did as many lessons as it required for her kid to learn it.

But why should she have to do that? Her kid goes to *school* and there is no reason teachers can’t do that same thing and teach 25 kids instead of just one.

Oh come on. I agree that parents shouldn't HAVE to teach some of this basic stuff but it is not a huge haul to teach SOME of it. And proper nouns does not require knowing how to teach or require a huge lift at home. And frankly, it can be reinforced while out an about "Campbell's soup", is that a proper noun, Larla?

Have you taught basic elementary principals like proper nouns? It actually isn’t as simple as you’d think. Yes it can be done but teaching anything does indeed require knowing how to teach. And it would be one thing if it was just proper nouns. But many (not all!) teachers and administrators these days think that once they have done a few lessons on a topic, it’s the parent’s job to make sure the concept sticks. This is true of math facts, handwriting, spelling, and many other fundamental topics, sometimes even phonics (😳😳😳).

It’s completely reasonable to expect that a teacher teach these things in school. And in fact that is what has traditionally been done and is done in many places. Those of us who expect our kids to learn these things in school aren’t crazy.

Take a breath. If you read my post, I agree that teachers should be teaching these things in school. Certainly more than they are in FCPS.

As for "have I taught basic elementary principles like proper nouns?", the answer is yes. I worked with my kid on grammar AND writing through late ES and MS (when they were DL). There are lots of resources to help where we needed it. My DC is in 9th now and she actually texted me from school at the beginning of the year thanking me for working with here (they were doing assessments and most of here HONORS class couldn't string together a paragraph). She complained mightily when we had our "lessons" but they have paid off. And they were not burdensome or cumbersome. I'd rather not have to do it. But I could stand on principle and she wouldn't learn what she needed. Or I could just do what needed to be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not a Covid thing. This is a normal FCPS curriculum thing. They don’t really care about writing until high school and by then you’re kid kind of sucks at it. This is what private schools do better.

If you want your kid to write better, you really have to work on it at home. My kid is too busy working on google slides at school. Haven’t you noticed they don’t even do book reports anymore? When I was a student at fcps, I had to do a book report every month.

This! FCPS is HORRIBLE with language arts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

She could teach her kids about proper nouns, sure, if she learned how to teach it, made her kid sit down after a full day of instruction, and did as many lessons as it required for her kid to learn it.

But why should she have to do that? Her kid goes to *school* and there is no reason teachers can’t do that same thing and teach 25 kids instead of just one.

Oh come on. I agree that parents shouldn't HAVE to teach some of this basic stuff but it is not a huge haul to teach SOME of it. And proper nouns does not require knowing how to teach or require a huge lift at home. And frankly, it can be reinforced while out an about "Campbell's soup", is that a proper noun, Larla?

Have you taught basic elementary principals like proper nouns? It actually isn’t as simple as you’d think. Yes it can be done but teaching anything does indeed require knowing how to teach. And it would be one thing if it was just proper nouns. But many (not all!) teachers and administrators these days think that once they have done a few lessons on a topic, it’s the parent’s job to make sure the concept sticks. This is true of math facts, handwriting, spelling, and many other fundamental topics, sometimes even phonics (😳😳😳).

It’s completely reasonable to expect that a teacher teach these things in school. And in fact that is what has traditionally been done and is done in many places. Those of us who expect our kids to learn these things in school aren’t crazy.

Take a breath. If you read my post, I agree that teachers should be teaching these things in school. Certainly more than they are in FCPS.

As for "have I taught basic elementary principles like proper nouns?", the answer is yes. I worked with my kid on grammar AND writing through late ES and MS (when they were DL). There are lots of resources to help where we needed it. My DC is in 9th now and she actually texted me from school at the beginning of the year thanking me for working with here (they were doing assessments and most of here HONORS class couldn't string together a paragraph). She complained mightily when we had our "lessons" but they have paid off. And they were not burdensome or cumbersome. I'd rather not have to do it. But I could stand on principle and she wouldn't learn what she needed. Or I could just do what needed to be done.

NP. The “take a breath” comment was you being a smart a$$. Couldn’t get past that and don’t care about anything else you wrote.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

She could teach her kids about proper nouns, sure, if she learned how to teach it, made her kid sit down after a full day of instruction, and did as many lessons as it required for her kid to learn it.

But why should she have to do that? Her kid goes to *school* and there is no reason teachers can’t do that same thing and teach 25 kids instead of just one.

Oh come on. I agree that parents shouldn't HAVE to teach some of this basic stuff but it is not a huge haul to teach SOME of it. And proper nouns does not require knowing how to teach or require a huge lift at home. And frankly, it can be reinforced while out an about "Campbell's soup", is that a proper noun, Larla?

Shut up with the stupid Larla thing.

Nah. But thanks for the input, Larla.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

She could teach her kids about proper nouns, sure, if she learned how to teach it, made her kid sit down after a full day of instruction, and did as many lessons as it required for her kid to learn it.

But why should she have to do that? Her kid goes to *school* and there is no reason teachers can’t do that same thing and teach 25 kids instead of just one.

Oh come on. I agree that parents shouldn't HAVE to teach some of this basic stuff but it is not a huge haul to teach SOME of it. And proper nouns does not require knowing how to teach or require a huge lift at home. And frankly, it can be reinforced while out an about "Campbell's soup", is that a proper noun, Larla?

Have you taught basic elementary principals like proper nouns? It actually isn’t as simple as you’d think. Yes it can be done but teaching anything does indeed require knowing how to teach. And it would be one thing if it was just proper nouns. But many (not all!) teachers and administrators these days think that once they have done a few lessons on a topic, it’s the parent’s job to make sure the concept sticks. This is true of math facts, handwriting, spelling, and many other fundamental topics, sometimes even phonics (😳😳😳).

It’s completely reasonable to expect that a teacher teach these things in school. And in fact that is what has traditionally been done and is done in many places. Those of us who expect our kids to learn these things in school aren’t crazy.

Take a breath. If you read my post, I agree that teachers should be teaching these things in school. Certainly more than they are in FCPS.

As for "have I taught basic elementary principles like proper nouns?", the answer is yes. I worked with my kid on grammar AND writing through late ES and MS (when they were DL). There are lots of resources to help where we needed it. My DC is in 9th now and she actually texted me from school at the beginning of the year thanking me for working with here (they were doing assessments and most of here HONORS class couldn't string together a paragraph). She complained mightily when we had our "lessons" but they have paid off. And they were not burdensome or cumbersome. I'd rather not have to do it. But I could stand on principle and she wouldn't learn what she needed. Or I could just do what needed to be done.

NP. The “take a breath” comment was you being a smart a$$. Couldn’t get past that and don’t care about anything else you wrote.

Yes, it was. You deserved it. Your loss.