Just a quick kid update because this week has been very tempestuous and I am tired of thinking about it.
M is slowly learning to write.
It is an extremely frustrating process for her because her receptive reading is very good, but her handwriting and spelling are not. (No surprise as spelling and fine motor skills are not my strongest areas either.) And because she can read so well, when she looks at her attempts to write, she knows it is wrong but doesn’t know how to fix it.
For a long time, M wouldn’t even try to write because she knew her writing wasn’t correct. (As a non-perfectionist daughter of a perfectionist, this tendency made me a little worried.) Something has been happening in kindergarten, though, that is encouraging M to give it her best shot and not worry if it is perfect or not.
Today, M spent some time writing down the words to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:
Twekcl twekcl ltutul stre
how i wdr wat you r
up av the wrold so hi
lik a daimd in the ski
tweckul tweckul littl ste
how i wdr wat you r
And for her part, once L made the connection between peeing an jellybeans, she has become a peeing whiz. If permitted, she would try to pee about 47 times an hour. No dice on the poo yet (except by accident) but we are making progress. We also have not managed to get her to potty outside the house, but we will try today at Chinese school. This is so much better than the disaster of potty training with M.
That is all the news that is fit to print. The weather is awesome so I am off to enjoy it.
This very minute I am helping Mason write in his buddy journal. It’s the exact same thing. He is 6, he is right now edging out of 3rd grade reading. He can’t write to save his life. He can spell better than my other children at this age, but the physical coordination of him making the letters kills him. It’s so frustrating for him. He can read Narnia out loud to his class, but struggles to write the sentence “I like baseball” in a readable fashion. He can type though. Sigh.
The good thing is that I have 3 older kids. They all catch up on whatever they are behind on by 9 or 10. This too shall pass. I am really, really thankful that he loves reading so much and seems to have an amazing memory and problem solving skills.
Yay, M! We’ve got the opposite problem here; the writing coordination was early, but the desire to read is late. And, as Lisa V. says, barring unforeseen problems, they all get it sooner or later.
My perfectionist son was very happy when we explained word to him..!
agree with Lisa V and Omegamom. Will add that M. is doing what is called “inventive” spelling – which is one of the biggest steps in learning to write and write well. In a few months, you will be an expert in inventive spelling and will be able to read whatever M. decides she wants to write.
Over here, Cami (the queen of inventive spelling till a moment mid kindergarten when she got spelling proper) is spending her afternoon looking up, and spelling in her notebook different words. Methinks she has been watching Akeelah and The Bee too often, as the words today seem to be constantly revolving choices of “pulchritude”, “argillaceous” and “xanthosis”. Hearing her practice the words over and over has been making me chuckle. My little wannabe spelling nerd in action.
Yes, quite typical for reading to be stronger than writing and spelling, and then for the writing and spelling skilsl to catch up. Quite typical for little smarties to be frustrated by this.
We are beginning to potty train over here as well. I hope you haven’t fallen from dizziness. I did fall in the bathtub while attempting to sit on the edge of it and read Thanh a book last week.
Sorry you had a rough week.
I’ve heard of this happening a lot with the easy reading vs. frustrating writing. I’m sure it happens more now because of the move toward using creative spelling in school. Luke is just the opposite: loves writing, reading not so much. Last year I was amazed, when looking through Luke’s kindergarten writing journal, how much easier it was to understand his spellings of words by the end of the year. I’m sure M will make rapid progress.
I love her version of Twinkle Twinkle!
(I’m catching up here…)
Oooh, what a treat, a comment from Chicagomama — oh, I miss her (and she won’t even see this comment, I should send her an email…).
Anyway, I think her writing is positively great! The funniest thing for us is when Kelvin decides he needs to write something in Portuguese… (he usually types it up and prints it because he’s a computer, printer, copier, ipod, etc… gadget geek). The spelling is so funny! Like I love you in Portuguese –Eu amo voce — “amo” gets spelled “umu” which is closer to the phonics he knows from English. Fun, fun times!!
Kelvin’s in first grade but can read at 2nd grade level, he just started spelling this past week and he’s doing fine. I think M is just where she should be with her writing… and I can read it just fine!