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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

+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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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