To Critique or not to critique.....??

My daughter loves to write stories. Some stories are more elaborate than others. Some are quite detailed with chapters and everything!!

Did I mention that she's 7 years old and up until this year, she hated reading?? Yup...this was the kid who hated reading.

What changed?? The curriculum I was using. I decided to try A.C.E Paces and she has just soared. Her reading has gotten better, she enjoys school and LOVES writing stories.

My problem you ask??
When she shows me her work, my first instinct is to grade it. To correct the spelling, grammar, sentence structure and punctuation. It's pretty bad, because she's only 7. Seven with a large vocabulary and has much to put on paper without the skills to do it effectively. That said, a little voice in my head said, "For crying out loud ...SHUT UP!!!" That is exactly how my subconscious speaks to me. I don't listen to quiet whispers.

My daughter is enjoying writing. She's enjoying reading. As much as it pains me, unless it's a school assignment , I don't grade her extra work. In fact, I am learning to enjoy reading all her phonetic writing and watching her improve as time goes on.

This is a tough thing to do , because the teacher in me wants EVERY opportunity to be a learning one but in my heart, I would only squash her desire to write. I don't want to squash that.

What I do is this....

I smile, I ask her questions, sometimes I'll even ask her to describe a character more to me. This she loves. This keeps her writing. It's easy to ignore the imperfections when her face is lighting up about her story as she explains her character to me. Sometimes I'll say, "Wow, that was great. Are you writing more about her?". I like to give her MORE opportunities to write for fun.


How do you handle these things??

Laura,
Loving, Learning and Leaning on Christ