A Quote to Start Things Off

""I'd love to go to Santa Fe at some point, Emmett said, but for the time being, I need to go to New York. The panhandler stopped laughing and adopted a more serious expression. Well. that's life in a nutshell, aint it. Lovin' to go to one place and havin' to go to another. Amor Towles in the Lincoln Highway.

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Pictures of Memories I

Pictures of Memories I
Snow kidding! These "kids" now range from 17 to 23

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

For reluctant writers!

Guest poster, Amy Roller, aka my wife, takes a whack at Works-for-me Wednesday and the Carnival of Homeschooling for that matter. Amy is an experienced home school teacher and school psychologist

Is your child a reluctant writer? Do they have great ideas when speaking, then are barely able to write one sentence? I learned about this idea from Diane Craft (http://www.dianecraft.org/necraft.org/) at a homeschool convention a few years back. Other educators have called it "Brain Gym" (Paul Dennison.) Occupational therapists have used it, psychologists have used it, teachers and parents have used it.

The purpose of this activity is to transfer writing from the paper and pencil, physical activity, to the creative writing process. It helps the brain's two hemispheres to work together. The left side of the brain is where the beginning of learning new things lies, and then it is transfered to the right side when it is fully leared, and no longer in need of thought (i.e., driving a car, tying your shoes, etc.) We have seen a significant improvment in our childrens' writing skills, and I have seen improvements in the school setting as well.


I sat down with my daughter Emma to demonstrate this method for you. She has demonstrated it for me to general and special ed teachers at the school where I work:




The sideways 8 activity it works for me. If you click here, you will be sent to Rocks in my Dryer to see what works for others.

To see what other home school moms and dads are up to click here to go to the current carnival of home school being hosted this week by topsy-techie.


Thanks Amy


Next Time: My Music A to Z

8 comments:

Kim @ Forever Wherever said...

Thanks so much! Your daughter did a great job on the video! I'm going to try it with my son. He has a hard time with writing.
-Kim

Susie said...

That's a great tip! Thanks so much for sharing it:-)

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much. Our whole crew is "allergic to pencils." I bet this will help.

Ali said...

I don't have any school aged kids yet, but I was homeschooled once, great tip!

Thanks for visiting my blog, good luck with Flying!

Anonymous said...

can you re do the link? It didn't get me anywhere, but I'd like to read more about this!

thanks!

Dave Roller said...

Anonymous: The link to the video or the link to additional posts? I just testem them and they are both working fine.

sweetnika said...

dave, we do this at our house too!!! Ki is dysgraphic, and Dianne Craft ROCKS, we use her Right brained stuff too :)

Lynn said...

Hey Home School Dad Dave, Thanks for stopping by and visiting my blog. I'm glad to have discovered yours. I left further lemon zest instructions should you be eager to add a culinary factoid to your repertoire :) I had to comment on this post as we did this "rhythmic writing" with the big sideways 8 for about a year with our son when he was younger. He still runs screaming from the room whenever he sees a giant chalkboard. Let's just say it was not one of our more successful attempts at helping a reluctant writer! Far better was teaching the boy to type :)

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