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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't ever remember writing more than a sentence until 2nd grade and I went to a top private school. We were taught the letters, then the words then how to create a sentence. When I had to write a paragraph, it was the natural next step. Then, in middle school maybe, 5 paragraphs for an essay. All completely structured. My kids were supposed to write about whatever in 1st grade and what came home was a mishmash of words. Stayed that way too, until covid, when I realized that my daughter could not write at all.

As a writer, I was floored when she had no idea how to even structure a paragraph. [/quote]

What grade was she in?  I think it’s important to understand what the class as a whole has learned.   Was your daughter one of only a few who couldn’t grasp the concept or was the whole class doing poorly.

I have one child who is not a very good reader. She’s slow and it’s hard for her to retain what she read.   As a result she doesn’t read that often for fun. She does get reading help in school and she knows how to read, she just will never be as strong a reader as most of her classmates.

My son was always more than a few grade levels ahead of his class.   It’s because of the reading material he chooses.  He starting reading books in 2nd grade written by comedians, their biographies, adult graphic novels, most books that involve comedy.  He got the clever nuanced comedy and the big words.

I don’t fault the teacher’s style for my daughter’s inability to read well and I don’t give credit to the teaching method used for my son’s skills.  [/quote]

Reading above grade level doesn't always translate to writing well. Mine is reading way above grade level and spends hours reading every day. He keeps his own notebooks with notes on geology and other weird facts. He writes stories and today wrote me a menu so I could order lunch. The advanced reading shows itself in his interests and his oral language, but not in his writing. His written syntax and spelling are awful, though it's gotten a bit better since we started doing word ladders at home. I may have to find him a writing workbook or tutor for the summer. He's only in 2nd grade, but they use the work shop approach where basically all you do is freewrite on a topic or book of your choice, and that work gets "edited" by other 1st and 2nd graders, you "conference" with the teacher if you're lucky, and if you work really hard and are lucky, at the end of it you come home with a 3 page piece full of errors but at least each sentence starts with a capitol and ends with a period.[/quote]

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