Sparkle thinks in words

I was working with Sparkle on math, and she wanted to find out what is half of nine. After painstakingly walking Sparkle through the process to find out the answer using several manipulatives, I asked her to write the answer down. She completely bypassed all my previous instructions about how fractions were written, and spelled out "4 and a half." I suggested that she try writing the answer "the math way" (it would be faster and less writing!), but she declined and I was afraid that if I pushed the issue her brain would short circuit.