Writing in elementary school

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

We have run into this problem over the years. At the end of last school year, I filled out the parent input form for class placement the following year and specifically requested that my son be assigned a teacher who emphasizes composition and editing by hand (not on a computer). I don’t know if the school took my request to heart or whether it was luck or the draw, but this year’s teacher has focused on these things a lot. Fifth grade.

[Anonymous]

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.

+1, they can’t focus on capitalization and spacing when they don’t even know what they’re writing yet. Get the ideas down, then edit. It is literally the writing process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have run into this problem over the years. At the end of last school year, I filled out the parent input form for class placement the following year and specifically requested that my son be assigned a teacher who emphasizes composition and editing by hand (not on a computer). I don’t know if the school took my request to heart or whether it was luck or the draw, but this year’s teacher has focused on these things a lot. Fifth grade.

Given the real change I saw this year in fourth grade, I would guess that the progression you are seeing in fifth grade is the norm. The Teacher flat out said that they focus on how to structure a sentence, how to structure a paragraph, how to brainstorm, and all the different steps for writing. Then they start writing smaller paragraphs and build. It was the first time that I heard a Teacher mention teaching how to think about writing as opposed to writing. Fifth grade starting to focus on composition and editing would make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been really disappointed with my third graders writing. He isn’t capitalizing proper names, leaving spaces between words and not using punctuation. He teacher makes no corrections for these things. Shouldn’t she correct these mistakes do he learns the correct way to write? I’m very disappointed with the lack of writing instruction. He has never had any writing home or spelling words for all of third grade! Is this just me or are others having the same issues in FCPS?

There is little/no writing instruction in FCPS, including our highly rated Level 4 AAP center. It was a PROFOUND disappointment to me when we went through it (in HS now). I had to teach my child to write. To know rules of grammar. To string together more than basic thoughts. This is the one, major criticism I have about FCPS.

In HS, it's better. It's still not great. And I worry about how this will translate to older grades and college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All you test haters. Well you got what you asked for.

Crazy for people to think that you should be able to teach subjects without requiring a SOL or VGA or whatever other ridiculous assessment you want to hoist onto the kids. Some how many of us who went to school before No Child Left Behind did well without all the tests.

I don't know what school you went to, but my elementary school growing up had tests. People are leaving in droves to attend private schools like catholic. Our catholic school graded morning work. Morning work. Every single assignment graded on a 0-100 scale. Not some 1-5 scale. But SOL's the bare minimum of competence is some unknown danger. It's a ridiculous backlash about a simple test of minimal competence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a teacher. Our third graders have taken personal narratives, “all about books”, content area research, realistic fiction and poetry through the writing process. They planned, drafted, revised and edited their work. They met with peers and teachers in writing conferences. Their writing was graded using the FCPS rubrics. Our focus lessons have covered punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing, etc.

Do you send it home?

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Two years our FCPS school decided it was a great idea to send all the work home at the end of the year. So of course, we never saw any writing all year, my kid threw away the stuff before I could see it one year, my kid made little to no progress because they and I saw nothing of writing all year, and none of it was graded because why would you need to at the end of the year? Dumbest idea ever.

[Anonymous]

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.

+1, they can’t focus on capitalization and spacing when they don’t even know what they’re writing yet. Get the ideas down, then edit. It is literally the writing process.

Getting the ideas down then editing is a part of the writing process. But that is an organization thing not a mechanics thing. Knowing basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation are a separate thing. Try reading someone’s writing and making suggestions for higher level organization when it is a complete mess at the sentence level. I have done it and it is very difficult. It is much easier to make suggestions on organization and ideas when you can get through the sentences.

[Anonymous]

My 3rd grader is getting 2s in writing, so you can imagine how bad it is that she's that much worse than the other kids in her class. We've had a reading tutor for two years but earlier this year, our reading tutor started working on writing instead. It's done a world of good. We still aren't where we need to be as last year was a total disaster with DL + a long-term sub in the spring with no teaching training.

But yeah, OP, you aren't alone. This issue drives me bonkers. And don't get me started on the lack of robust spelling instruction.

[Anonymous]

it seems that elementary schools don't correct spelling, writing and grammar issues. It seems odd but I had one 4th grader teacher say "it was a lot of work to go through all the writing."

We hired a tutor.

[Anonymous]

It’s a problem in a lot of elementary schools. I’m a veteran teacher. I can give you lots of reasons why, but you should complain to the principal, and hire a tutor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a teacher. Our third graders have taken personal narratives, “all about books”, content area research, realistic fiction and poetry through the writing process. They planned, drafted, revised and edited their work. They met with peers and teachers in writing conferences. Their writing was graded using the FCPS rubrics. Our focus lessons have covered punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing, etc.

Do you send it home?

Yes. We send it home with the grading rubrics. Why would we do all that work and not send it home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a teacher. Our third graders have taken personal narratives, “all about books”, content area research, realistic fiction and poetry through the writing process. They planned, drafted, revised and edited their work. They met with peers and teachers in writing conferences. Their writing was graded using the FCPS rubrics. Our focus lessons have covered punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing, etc.

Do you send it home?

Yes. We send it home with the grading rubrics. Why would we do all that work and not send it home?

Seems like this is another teacher by teacher. school by school issue. I'm sure some teachers are sending graded work home. Our 3rd grade teacher isn't (and he doesn't post any grades in schoology). So sometimes it can get a little frustrating when you can't get a handle on where your kid needs help.