How to Get Your Aversion-To-Writing Child to Write

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By DreamLiving
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You've given your child a home school writing assignment (or your child brings home a writing assignment) and the paper is blank. Or, your child wrote a paper for the home school educator or school teacher and it is covered with corrections. From the start of the child's education, has writing been a struggle for him/her (the student)? Read on for tips to encourage your student to write.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A Reluctant Writer
Observation Skills
Patience
Time
Practice Paper
Recorder (video or audio)
Commitment to critique/grade final product

Step 1

If you have a child who has a difficult time putting words on paper, you will need to assess where the problem begins. Is the child able to write anything without prompting? Does the child write a few sentences and stop writing?
Step 2

Rule out any reading and vision challenges. If your child faces dyslexia or other challenges, it will be a continual struggle in encouraging your child to write.
Step 3

Seek qualified treatment or tutoring for challenges aforementioned (Step 2).
Step 4

Consider the following:
A. Your children may like to write, but not about what you are interested in. For example, maybe your boys want to write about pirates, squishy worms, or ninja warriors.

If you criticize the content of the writing during the creative writing process, your child (particularly boys) will less likely produce a paper with a story on it. They may experience writer's block due to your possible disapproval.

B. Do you mark up the child's paper and return it for correction? This is very discouraging.

By observing your child's grammatical errors, you can tailor your English classes to focus on errors that the child routinely makes. For example, does your child always put the period on the outside of the quotation marks when the period should be inside? Have a lesson on quotation marks. Also, use sentences from their papers on a quiz or test. (This way you have not marked up the paper given to you for an assignment but you still have addressed the grammatical errors.)

C. Do you provide the child(ren) an opportunity to submit a rough draft to you? By informing a child when he/she is submitting a rough draft for review, you empower them to work harder on rough drafts than all of their papers.
Step 5

Do you have a vocal child? Does your child have a very active imagination? Consider using a tape recorder or video recorder for an assignment. Tell your child the topic you want him/her to write about. Turn on the tape recorder and allow them to tell you the story. Then, when they are done, let them know you recorded the story. Now, the student can write down the verbal story they created.
Step 6

Do you have an artistic child? Make eight squares on a piece of paper and have the child draw each major scene in the story. In each block, have the child/student write one sentence about each scene. This will be the building block for the creative writing process.
Step 7

Maybe you have a budding actor living with you. Have the child "act out" the story he/she wants to write. Again, you can record the acting scene (and transfer the words) to paper that were used during the Oscar performance to paper.