The Un-Scope and Sequence

What will writing look like for kids between kindergarten and age twelve?

Writers Under 10

Don’t expect nuttin’ (or at least not much). These kids will talk your ears off. They don’t need any encouragement to tell you jokes, riddles, convoluted tales, cliches as old as the hills (get it?), episodes of cartoons they love, stories about neighborhood kids, little known factoids about tarantulas, sharks, legos, the equator, Columbus, the garbage disposal, winter, blood—you name it.

Do they write? Oh yes, as long as you don’t ask them to. They write secret codes. They scribble notes on paper; they make play money; they write their names over and over.

But do they enjoy writing assignments? No. Let’s be honest—who does? No one; least of all these short guys. Writing too soon usually kills their otherwise prolific commentary on life. So keep talking and listening, listening and talking. That’s the ticket.

Writers 10 to 12

These guys still talk your ears off. They just don’t hold your attention as well (after all, you’ve been listening to them for ten years)! Don’t stop listening. Keep ‘em talking. And here’s what to expect:

  • Rotten spelling I mean the worst. They’ll get every word right in the spelling book and then completely misspell the same words in their writing assignments. ‘Because,’ all forms of ‘their,’ words that use an apostrophe, ‘very,’ words ending in ‘tion’� you get the idea.

  • Lousy punctuation Caps appear in the middle of words or sentences and are omitted at the front end of sentences. Periods are an after thought. Commas are decorations. Run-on sentences and fragments are common. Paragraphing is unheard of apart from mom’s chiding and intervention.

  • Grammar What’s that? They can be made to understand the names of verbs, nouns, adjectives and the like. But you can’t make them stick. Will they mess up proper usage? Of course.

  • Self-expression When they do self-express you often won’t like what you read. Liable to say things like, “The blood squirted out of his guts and smooshed all over the ground so that the girl’s dress got all grodie.” Self-expression turns up in the darndest places, like lock and key diaries, on the edges of a good paper. If you give them their head, they will undoubtedly test you by writing the most obnoxious stuff.

  • Content
    Will they mention all those facts that you slaved to pour into them from the history unit study? Often they will. And when asked to tell you the details, they do so with fluid prose. Hand them a pencil and words like ‘good’, ‘fun’, ‘great’, and ‘lousy’ appear like magic. All those clear ideas disappear in favor of getting the writing over with as quickly as possible.

  • Length Two lengths dominate this age group: very short and very long. Either the kid hates writing and swears he can only write two sentences or she loves it and writes on and on and on. The short paper is frustrating to read but at least the pain is short lived. The long paper is a slow torturous exercise in wading through all of those awful mechanical problems. And many times, the paper never concludes. It just stops and is never returned to. So what’s a mother to look for?

Because the young writer is a bad writer (hey, they’re beginners�they’re all bad writers), lower your expectations and look for these components instead:

  • flashes of insight
  • good understanding of the subject
  • creative word pictures
  • clever use of language (description or sophisticated vocabulary word)
  • associations between subjects
  • passion
  • truth-telling (as the truth is for her)

If you find one of these in any writing assignment, praise your kid up and down. Circle it and highlight it and celebrate it. You can build on that one thing.

Since mechanics are notoriously weak at these ages, the subjective aspects of writing (content) deserve the front row seat in the writing education. Editing should be seen as “no big deal.” It’s the “mop up” after a wonderful, creative surge has filled the paper.

Use copywork and dictation to teach the mechanics.

So let her write what fills her mind and imagination as she slowly wades into the waters of written communication. The “strokes” for “swimming” (forms for writing) can be taught after she develops confidence that what she has to say matters to you the most.