Kindergardener Not Wanting to Learn How to Write.

Good Morning K....Well you could try the ol Love & Logic approach: "I provide TV time to kids who have finished their homework." You can mess with the wording but you get the idea. Then when he wants to watch TV later you just say "wow that is so sad you didn't do your writing today maybe you'll do it tomorrow and then you can watch TV again." Don't nag him or give him ultimatums, etc. If he chooses not to write for a few days fine...eventually he's going to want the reward (tv time, video game time, etc.) and he'll choose to do it.

L

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Writing can be very boring. Try giving him something fun to write. For example:

*Do Mad Libs together and have him fill in the blanks.
*Find a cousin that he really likes and get them to write letters back and forth.

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I am a Kinder teacher and know that it can be hard to get those kids to want to practice writing....we push our kids pretty hard in our country. I've heard our Occupational Therapist say that in other countries, kids are asked to write much later and that it's not really all that developmentally appropriate to be writing the way we do in Kinder....That being said, the standards are what they are. So, perhaps you could try some fun things at home like writing the letters in shaving cream on a table. Or put hair gel in a ziploc bag and let him practice in that. How about rainbow writing, where he gets to use all different colors? You could also take him to the store and let him pick out some "special" pencils or pens that he gets to use when he practices his writing with you. Just some ideas...good luck!

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Writing is a fine motor skill that my 2 boys took longer to master than my 2 girls. I would try to find a way to make writing fun.

Since your son likes drawing and other artistic pursuits, he might enjoy writing with glitter pens, big fat art pencils, colorful markers with a variety of tips (wide, thin, chiseled), crayons. Have him experiment with writing different sizes, using a different color for each letter, various writing surfaces. Sometimes an "I wonder if" gets my boys busy, like "I wonder if these sharpie markers will write on aluminum foil, or "I wonder how big and how small you can write the alphabet"? Perhaps your son would like to write a story to describe a drawing or playdough sculpture he created. Hopefully, your son will find a way to write that he enjoys, and create some keepsakes for you, too.

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K.,
I don't think there are many kindergardeners who like to write. I have been homeschooling my daughter since the 1st grade. She is now in the fifth grade and I have to tell you nothing makes her sigh more than the words I want you to write... The two other moms I meet with once a week for science and sign language tell similar stories about their children and writing. I definitely would not force it at so early an age. Usually for girls around 8-10 years is when they are more okay with writing. Boys usually take a little longer. As far as math we have the privilege of picking our own curriculum, so we have tried a few until we found one that we liked! Playing with playdough, cutting and drawing are wonderful for building the dexterity needed for writing and are very age appropriate for a kindergardener. So let him play!

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First, let me tell you I've been thru this with several children. I wasn't successful in getting them to succeed in what I expected them to do.

My granddaughter, who is in the 2nd grade, also doesn't like to practice writing. She will fill in blanks and write her own ideas. But if someone sits her down and says let's work on your writing she squirms, distracts herself and me by telling me things, wanting to play, etc.

Her teacher has said that her handwriting is not up to par but to not be overly concerned. The teacher is encouraging her to write more neatly when she turns in sloppy homework. She is not asking her mother to sit down with her and insist that she write. Her teacher is asking her mother to help my granddaughter by reminding her and helping her when she needs it to finish her homework. The goal is to get homework done and turned in; not on being perfect.

Unless the teacher is asking you to focus on his writing I suggest that you back away from that issue. He's only in Kindergarten. Not all kids develop the muscle skills to write the way that we want them to write. And....he will only work on it when he wants to improve his writing.
When you push him you're setting both of you up for a power struggle.

As Michelle suggested, you could try to make it fun. Use "work books" and treat filling in the blanks a game. "Work books" are sometimes available at the Dollar Store. I've also purchased them from Fred Meyer. As to writing notes, my granddaughter wasn't interested in writing to friends until the second grade. Boys develop later, espcially socially, for the most part.

You could try having him write "important" notes that you dictate. Dictate a shopping or chore list to put on the frig or a note to you to remind you or someone else of something. Make him a part of something other than sitting down to learn how to write. And don't critique his work or have him correct it. He'll want to do that when he's ready.

When we pressure kids to do things better, we are teaching them that they are not good enough.
I've seen that with my daughter and granddaughter. My daughter wants her daughter to do the best work possible but forgets that she may already be doing the best work possible for her at this time. When I helped my granddaughter with some work last week, I suggested, as the teacher's instructor had suggested in her note home, that I could proof read her report. She refused to let me do that, saying that it would do not good because she couldn't do any better. She was super anxious and I backed away. My daughter had told me that they had had a fight over homework the previous day. Both my daughter and granddaughter are getting more and more frustrated doing homework. My daughter and I were also frustrated over homework when she was in grade school. The same with my step-son and me.

A part of my conversation with my granddaughter started when she told me that I shouldn't worry because she is responsible for her own work. She repeated that several times. I asked if she would do her homework if her mama and I stopped bugging her. She was honest and said that she might but maybe not. Then she reminded me again that homework is her responsibility.

When we take on the responsibility we're letting them off the hook. I've heard her make excuses such as Mama didn't remind me. Mama didn't help me. None of her excuses admitted that she didn't do it.

After this conversation I remembered, that during my child rearing years, searching for ways to get out of the homework wars and was told by professionals that the homework wasn't my responsibility. I'm aware that I didn't understand what that meant until today. Yes, I agreed that the actual doing of the homework is the child's responsibility but I stuck with the belief that it was my responsibility to see that they do it. Wrong! Finally I understand! It's my responsibility to provide the equipment, the time and a space conducive to doing homework. Then, when they don't want my help, it's my responsibility to allow them to do it or not and then they experience the consequences. There really are none for me unless I create them.

Looking back, I realize that I intervened in doing the homework because I felt that my reputation as a mother was on the line. I can realize that now because, as a grandmother, I don't feel such a strong sense of responsibility for who my granddaughter is or isn't. There is no doubt in my mind that she is separate from me.

Here's a related much simpler example of how we affect our children without realizing it. My granddaughter is very social and talkative. We started calling her a chatterbox when she was a toddler. This progressed to several times saying within her hearing that she just couldn't stop talking. When she was in kindergarten I asked her to calm down and stop talking. She said,innocently, "but gramma, I can't stop talking. mama has said so." She believed what she'd been told by the most important, smartest person in her life.

I think the same affect can happen in homework issues. We push and push, trying to get our kids to complete a task to our satisfaction. Perhaps we don't realize that they are doing the best that they can do at this time. Our requiring something from them that they can not or do not do and then pushing them, often times showing our frustration and sometimes even anger, gives the child the message that they aren't good enough. Even when we "know" that they can do it, they may not, in reality, be able do it or they decide ( most likely unconcsiously) that they will not do it because the work has become the parent's and not the child's responsibility.

I would add that if the teacher has not asked for our help in a specific way that we are assuming her role as teacher, taking on her responsibility, when we insist that our child do what we want him to do. When teachers suggest that we sit down with our child, they are expecting that we will provide a calm pleasant atmosphere conducive for getting the work done. They are not suggesting that we push to the point of frustration.

Another addendum: I don't know when we started teaching children writing and math in kindergarten. When I was in school and my daughter was in school, being able to write and do arithmetic, was not a requirement in kindergarten.

I don't remember that my granddaughter even did much arithmetic. In my granddaughter's kindergarten they were introduced to writing and arithmetic but they weren't expected to be proficient. They did receive marks on a report card to let parents know where their child stood in comparison to the state's expectations of achievement. That's when I bought her first fun work book.

This leads to my suggestion that you talk with your son's teacher and get her viewpoint on what and how much your son needs to be able to do to progress to first grade. Ask her if you need to be concerned about your son's level of interest in writing and arithmetic.

As you said, not everyone excels at the same things or at the same time. He needs to know that he's a good person capable of learning when he's ready to learn.

If his teacher is requiring him to do a certain amount of writing you could give him a page sent home by the teacher and a pencil, turn off the TV, tell him this is writing time and that you will help if he wants and then walk away. After the 15 minutes (the usual expected time for a kindergartner to spend on homework) are over tell him he can stop now.

If he's done some writing, no matter how sloppy, praise him. If not, just put away the paper and go on to the next part of the evening (or morning). Doing this takes the task out of the realm of emotion and puts the responsibility for actually doing it on him.

If the teacher doesn't send home something to work on but wants him to practice you could use a work book page or make your own by writing a sentence with fill in the blanks, writing a simple sentence that he's to copy, or drawing or pasting pictures on a page for him to identify. Perhaps you're already doing that and he's not co-operating. The best that you can do is remove yourself from his fight. That is not easy.

It may take quite awhile for him to realize that what he does or doesn't do is his decision and that his job is to please himself and his teacher rather than you.

Another idea, that worked for awhile with my granddaughter during the summer after kindergarten was to give her a work book and markers to use while we were driving. She called it her homework and loved doing it. She emphasized that it was her homework. She wouldn't "let" me look at it.

adon't critique his work and ask him to make corrections. Accept whatever he writes and praise him.

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Hello K.,
My middle son took a lot of motivating to do written work (writing/math) when he was in pre-k through 1st grade. We realized (finally!) that he is very far sighted and couldn't see the papers in front of him clearly enough to do them!
All the testing that had been done was to see if he was near sighted so no one had realized that he could see everything on the other side of the room but nothing right in front of him.
Best of luck!
M.

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My 4-yr old received a fun game for his birthday, and maybe for your son this wouldn't be fun, but maybe worth trying. It is called Alphabet Squiggle. It is a game where children trace the alphabet letters. There's more to it, but that is where it would apply to your question. Having fun writting letters might be all it takes? Maybe?

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Have you thought of some different activities that you could do that would make it fun for him? Like practice writing by putting shaving cream on the table and letting him write in it? Or making mud and using a stick to write with? Or making a treasure map and having him write on the map then burning around the edges etc. etc. Sometimes kids are really tactile and learn through touch or experience. Maybe if it was an "out of the box" type of experience than he'd be more inclined to practice. You could also get him some sort of journal to write in and draw pictures in and go on a bug safari, at the Kinder stage any writing practice is good... letter formation as well as drawing for those fine motor skills. Good luck!

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One of my coworkers was also bemoaning how hard it was to get her son to practice his writing - I'm not quite sure what age he was in at the time, but it was early elementary. One of the things she found helped was letting him play with a white board. There seemed to be something about the large, colorful markers, and the ability to clean everything completely away and start over as many times as he wanted that made things better. Plus, the white board was a never ending surface for drawing upon. I'd keep my eye out for ways to make writing a game, and then don't sweat it too much until you chat with his teacher and find out whether he's "behind" his peers or not. As a former high school teacher and current middle school teacher, I can attest that there are plenty of kids still working on their handwriting at the upper grades. Very few of those kids have handwriting that is truly illegible and an impediment to their learning, and I bet that very few of those kids spent much time practicing handwriting outside of school.
Another thing to think about is that what seems like a short time for us, to your son may feel like an eternity. Especially when gaining a new skill that he already finds challenging. There are definitely things that he'll study in the future which will require him to sit still for awhile to process properly, but a few minutes of writing a couple of times a day could be more than enough practice outside of the school day for a kindergartener.
And just a sidenote on the technology - there might come a day when technology will remove the need for handwriting, but that day isn't here yet, and our schools tend to be woefully underfunded and the technology that is available to students (except in a couple of rare instances) is behind what is available to the consumer. So, don't stress the handwriting at the kindergarten age, but at some point, he'll probably need to master it.

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I don't think that is very uncommon, especially for boys about his age. Try to make it fun and provide some choices, too. You said he likes drawing and play doh. Ask him to make a letter with the play doh, then write that same letter on a piece of paper. The choice could be, "Do you want to make the letter with your play doh first or write it with your pencil first?" You could also have him make the letter and then let him draw something that starts with that letter. ANother idea is to use shaving cream or whipping cream on a cookie sheet and have him write the letter with his finger in the cream. As a special education teacher, I see so many boys that say, "I hate writing!" so try to feed his head with lots positives surrounding any writing you get him to do and make it fun!!! Try not to focus on quantity of writing at first, but just that he is doing SOME writing and having fun!

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I had the same problem when I was a child. I wanted nothing to do with pencils or writing or math...even though I was good at math (my brother 2 years younger used to do my 2nd grade math for me when he was in kindergarten). I don't know how my mother got through it! As an adult, I was diagnosed with ADHD and I belive (although it is not diagnosed) that I have sensory perceptive disorder. I imagine that this had A LOT to do with my problems. Has your son ever seen any kind of specialist to get any of those types of things checked out? If he does have a similar problem, there are lots of tricks and "therapies" that can (and probably will) help a great deal. I remember how frustrating it was for me being a kid that had that problem. Good luck to you. I hope this helps.

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Kids learn in different ways...sometimes they don't like to sit still in particular! Try having him stand up at an easel or chalkboard to do some letters with chalk or paintbrush. If it's more that he doesn't like putting a pencil to paper/chalk to board, and he needs help with just getting the basics, try working with him on dot-to-dot picture puzzles. Kids LOVE these and will practice basic "line drawing" skills without knowing while they do it...and that is important for creating letters later. You can come up with some crazy ideas, like putting large poster paper on a fence, and writing huge letters there, just to do something creative and different that catches his interest! You have to think "outside the box"!

My oldest stepson went to a private school for a time, where they taught handwriting first. It was told to us that it has a more natural flow and is easier for the kids. If that is an option (which it probably is not with the average public school), I would try to get him handwriting. This stepson is now 13 and has horrible printing, but beautiful handwriting.

Everyone had awesome ideas! I am sure that if you keep on trying, it will sink in. And some kids never enjoy handwriting, its just not their natural gift.

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Hi, K.,

I have 8 and 10 year old boys who are very different in learning styles. My older one learns like me, sitting down, observing, listening and doing it with trials and errors. My young one is opposite. He does not sit still. If he did, he does not seem visually attending to what is going on in front of him. But both of them learned what they had to in time. Different approaches for handwriting for my young son was to use gross motor.. that is big body movement. I ripped brown grocery paper bags open and lay them on kitchen floor. I held him in front of me in sitting (with my legs split and him between my legs) and held his both arms and practice one letter at a time with repetition over and over using whole body swaying. Similar tech with a large chalk on side walk may work. His classroom teacher in the second grade suggested to form letters with play dough and do a little bit of handwriting. My son's favorite was to prep kiddie plastic mirror or paper plate with shaving cream (or choco pudding if you can tolerate the mess)and have them trace the letters with their finger tips (this is a fun fine motor practice). If their hand and plate/mirror were clean, they get to eat the pudding at the end.
At the kindergarten level, some boys do not seem ready for hand writing. It is important, that in doing these activities, to have fun. And, you have fun, if you can. (I know it was hard at the time for me. But I accepted the fact these are two intelligent boys who learn differently, not trying to be rebellious or anything. And it got a bit easy, although, it took me a while to truly accept that because often I was frustrated than anything.)

Good luck.

K.

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my son also had the worst handwriting when young [now 25] when we talked about it he told me he was praticing to be a doctor, always good for a laugh , and still is.

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Hi K.,

I have had the same situation with my son who is now 7 and in first grade. What we have done and has worked very well is making a weekly calendar. I give that responsiblity to my son to make. Than we together plan weekly goals on what we want to accomplish. Once those goals are met, I reward him with playdates or making an ice cream sundae or going on an outing...something really exciting that he enjoys. What you will be doing is putting the responsibilty on him.

My son brings homework home every Monday and has to have it completed and brought back to school on Friday. Some challenges I have faced in the past is getting him to sit down and work on it. Our schedule is filled with sports and it's very important that we use our time wisely so he has his homework completed and is prepared for his spelling test for Friday. So...what I've done is again put the responsibilty on him. If he gives me a hard time I tell him...that's ok I'll just come to your school tomorrow and we will work on your your homework during all your recesses.I tell him... either way your going to get it done. After acouple of times saying that I've never had a issue with his homework again. I see that you work fulltime. If this ever becomes an issue for you, talk to his teacher and see if they offer a study hall during that time before offering him the choice. Again, it's all about putting the responsibilty on them and following through. I hope this helps :).

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