{"id":528,"date":"2014-12-02T08:58:51","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T15:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/?page_id=528"},"modified":"2015-07-07T10:22:49","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T16:22:49","slug":"poor-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/poor-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Poor Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photoxpress_44768981-300x199\"Question:<\/h4>\n

I could use some insights on how to get my kids to turn out better quality book reports and just writing in general.\u00a0 My oldest is in 6th grade and the next child is in 3rd grade, and here we’ve done grammar and writing year after year and yet so many times in journal writing or book reports I don\u2019t see what they\u2019re learning taking hold in everyday usage.\u00a0 I use Rod and Staff English<\/em> books and I also switched to Winston Grammar<\/em> for my 6th grader this past year, but like I said, when it comes to everyday usage they\u2019re not getting it.\u00a0 Help!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Answer:<\/h4>\n

It is hard to bridge the stretch from English book exercises to applying the skills to your own writing. We see this in many areas daily as a parent. You can coach a child and teach him how to answer the phone, for example, but when the phone rings, all lessons seem to fly out the window. The only way children learn to apply the skills is to actually do it.<\/strong> Practicing answering the phone many times will finally result in the connection of what you have taught is a proper way to answer with the actual act of answering.<\/p>\n

So it is with writing. Children have to write, write, write if they are going to apply the principles you teach them.<\/strong> I have my children write every single day in their school journals<\/a>. Then I go over and help them correct their writing. This is essential. Uncorrected writing only reinforces poor writing. Your children\u2019s writing should be done in pencil or erasable pen and any sloppy letters must be erased and rewritten. Spelling is corrected and recorded in a spelling section of their notebook. If they forgot to indent with a new idea, I have them erase and indent. It doesn\u2019t take too long, correcting their work, for them to consciously start correcting their sloppiness and taking the time to look up words in a spelling dictionary, rather than have to erase at mother\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

Each child\u2019s writing needs to be individually assessed and corrected, which is the beauty of homeschool. My son Ammon (7) writes very neatly so penmanship corrections are not an issue I make. If he makes paragraph errors (such as forgetting to indent with a new idea), I let them be at this point in his development. My aim with him is to reinforce complete sentences with proper punctuation and spelling. For Emily (9) however, I make sure that details are corrected. I watch for small penmanship errors as it is time to refine her cursive. With Julianna (14), together we discuss and correct her writing for awkward sentence structure, continuity of thought, overuse of adjectives and other advanced writing techniques.<\/p>\n

Writing every single day is the necessary practice to turn English lessons into actual better everyday writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

May I recommend:<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n

\"louisakto6\"
\nTeaching Children to Write the Natural Way
\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

\"Photoxpress_4560323-150x150\"
\nTeaching an Older Child to Write
\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

\"13651\"
\nWriting With Ease
\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: I could use some insights on how to get my kids to turn out better quality book reports and just writing in general.\u00a0 My oldest is in 6th grade and the next child is in 3rd grade, and here we’ve done grammar and writing year after year and yet so many times in journal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,187],"tags":[115],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-what-articles","category-writing","tag-writing","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Photoxpress_44768981-300x199.jpg?fit=300%2C199&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6IrRN-8w","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":265,"url":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/writing-in-my-homeschool\/","url_meta":{"origin":528,"position":0},"title":"Writing in My Homeschool","author":"Diane Hopkins","date":"","format":false,"excerpt":"Come take a peek inside my homeschool. Here's how I teach writing! And it works\u2014one of my sons got a perfect score on the English portion of the ACT test for college. Journal Writing Each day I expect my students to write a journal entry. I use the number of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "English: Writing"","block_context":{"text":"English: Writing","link":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/category\/what-articles\/english-writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"emily_journals","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/emily_journals-234x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2134,"url":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/teaching-an-older-child-to-write\/","url_meta":{"origin":528,"position":1},"title":"Teaching an Older Child to Write","author":"Diane Hopkins","date":"","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have a 9th grade daughter that really struggles in writing. She does not like writing so it has always been a battle and I have not pushed it nearly enough. Now I find she is really behind in writing and I am feeling panicked because writing is so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "What"","block_context":{"text":"What","link":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/category\/what-articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photoxpress_4560323-150x150","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Photoxpress_4560323-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":553,"url":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/teach-children-to-write\/","url_meta":{"origin":528,"position":2},"title":"Teaching Children to Write the Natural Way","author":"Diane Hopkins","date":"","format":false,"excerpt":"I would like to share with you some of the things we\u2019ve done in our homeschool that have really worked so well over the years. Teaching my children to write\u00a0 has been a joy to teach, and any mother can easily do it without any expensive program. I start when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "What"","block_context":{"text":"What","link":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/category\/what-articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"My daughter Louisa has kept her school journals since she was 4 years old. What a treasure they are now! A whole childhood recorded.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/louisakto6.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1022,"url":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/summer-journals\/","url_meta":{"origin":528,"position":3},"title":"Summer Journals","author":"Diane Hopkins","date":"","format":false,"excerpt":"Writing in a journal is wonderful in the summer because there is often so much more to write about! Swimming, vacations, gardening, the county fair, church picnics, camping . . . all these topics give my children plenty of writing ideas for their daily journal entries. In the summer, when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "English: Writing"","block_context":{"text":"English: Writing","link":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/category\/what-articles\/english-writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/69.195.124.81\/~homescp3\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/homeschooling_1081_zpicnic1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1160,"url":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/gifted-child\/","url_meta":{"origin":528,"position":4},"title":"Gifted Child","author":"Diane Hopkins","date":"","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I homeschooled my son in kindergarten and then had to put him in public school for 1st grade. They of course tested him and he is \"gifted\". I am blessed to be able to homeschool him again next year. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions on what I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Concerns"","block_context":{"text":"Concerns","link":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/category\/how-to-homeschool\/homeschooling-concerns\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/3kidsonarock.jpg?fit=373%2C280&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2123,"url":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/letter-confusio\/","url_meta":{"origin":528,"position":5},"title":"Is it a “b” or a “d”?","author":"Diane Hopkins","date":"","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My kids are having a hard time in reading and writing lower case \"b\" and \"d\" and are always mixing them up. \u00a0How do you help kids keep this straight? Answer: I teach them \"b\". \u00a0Leave \"d\" alone\u2014it will take care of itself once they learn \"b\". Have your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Reading","link":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/category\/what-articles\/reading-articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Photoxpress_1306365.jpg?fit=640%2C425&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Photoxpress_1306365.jpg?fit=640%2C425&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Photoxpress_1306365.jpg?fit=640%2C425&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7436,"href":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions\/7436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happyhomeschooling.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}