Most children become reluctant writers for one or more of the following reasons:

• They don’t see any reason for writing
• They don’t think they can spell
• They are not having the right things said to them about their writing

Find out how to make your child WANT to write

Just knowing what to say and how to say it will get you on the road to improving your child’s writing skills.

Let’s look at the first two reasons why children don’t like writing…

They don’t see any reason for writing and they don’t think they can spell.

Here’s what to do!

Get your child to write for fun

One idea: Start writing short notes to your children or other family members to let them know, for example, about something delicious you’ve put somewhere. Make them fun and hide them in unusual places, like the fridge. After a while your child will begin to see writing as fun and purposeful, and will want to have a go himself.

More ideas like this…

Get your child over spelling hang-ups

Stop making a big deal of spelling. Your child is probably not an accurate speller…but may well be a phonetic speller, which is an essential stage on the journey to becoming accurate. This stage needs to be valued, not condemned.

Now let’s tackle the third reason many children don’t like writing:

They are not having the right things said to them about their writing

I have this down as the third reason it is actually the Number One reason why children won’t write

Say the right things about your child’s writing

You need to give positive feedback to your child. This is not saying ‘That’s great’ every time your child writes another torturous sentence. He knows this isn’t true. Instead say something like ‘I like the way you mentioned….’ or ‘I like your idea about..’

Ask a question about the content of his writing, such as…’Does this person remind you of anyone?’ or ‘Why did you choose to write about horses?’ or ‘What’s going to happen next in your story?’

Your comments and questions are equally important for improving writing skills. You need to do both. It will take you a little while to perfect your skill at this so just aim for one question (about content of what he’s writing) and one positive comment as above.

Click here to find out about the How To Get Your Child To Write e-book.

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• He is not hearing and breaking up the words into their sound chunks
• He is not familiar with many general spelling patterns
• He is not applying his knowledge of spelling while writing

Check his ability to break up spoken words into spoken sounds (not letters)

For example, rain has three sound chunks, rrr sound, long a sound, nnn sound.

Ask him to say the word slowly and clap once for each sound.

If he can’t do this, show him how to do it, and start practising together with lots of short spoken words. It’s an oral activity, no writing required, and can be done anywhere, anytime.

Check his knowledge of simple spelling patterns for sounds

Phonetic spelling (sometimes called invented spelling) is a good thing. It shows that he is hearing the sounds in the word he is writing. It also indicates the patterns he needs to be taught.

Examples:

If he spells bak instead of back, he hears all the sounds, but may not have learned the _ck consonant digraph. This is an early spelling pattern.

If he spells rain as ran, he may not know this early _ai_ vowel digraph. Ask if he has learned any ways to represent the long a sound.

Here are some of the patterns for the long a sound:

__ay as in say

__ai as in rain

_a_e as in make

If he doesn’t know any of these patterns, he may not know them for the other long vowel sounds either.

Before you start on introducing patterns for long vowel sounds, it’s important to check first that he knows the sound of the short vowels. That is, a says ah, e says eh, i says ih, o says oh, u says uh. If he confuses long and short vowel sounds, work on the short vowels first. When you’re sure he knows them, then start with one easy pattern for the long a sound, eg _ay.

Show him words that contain the pattern, eg say, may, day, play. Take turns to hunt for words that contain this pattern in books or ads or packets, and circle or highlight them.

When he spells these words correctly in his writing, put a tick over each word. This is a simple but very powerful strategy to get him to focus on spelling these words correctly. Only tick words containing the pattern you’re focusing on.

Check whether he applies the patterns he knows in his writing

Early writers often have difficulty concentrating both on their ideas for writing and applying their spelling knowledge at the same time. Over time, use of correct spelling becomes automatic.

If he does know many spelling patterns but doesn’t use them when writing, ask him to look back and edit any words that he knows he’s written incorrectly. Tick each correction. Ignore words that are not correctly spelt because he probably does not know the pattern. However use this information to find out what patterns are unknown. Always choose the easiest of these patterns to work on. Just work on one pattern at a time and stick with it for some time. It’s tempting to rush through the patterns, especially when you see that there are many that he doesn’t know, but each pattern takes time to learn, and you should not move on until he knows it and has shown you that he can use it. Show him words that contain the pattern. Then get him to hunt for these words as above. Then reward him with a tick when he uses them.

Don’t let spelling problems become a major focus in his writing. This is a big mistake which often results in switching off young writers. Value the content of his writing above his spelling skills. Writing is for the purpose of sharing a message. Celebrate what he is saying and ask questions about it. You will turn his attitude towards writing from positive to negative. This is a major factor in improving writing skills.

If your child is very reluctant to write, How To Get Your Child To Write tells you exactly how to help.

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Before you can help a child with writing problems, you need to assess his writing in a rational way. Look at several different first drafts because these will give you the most useful information for improving writing. Final drafts are likely to have had input from other sources.

There are 5 questions to ask yourself as you check out each piece of writing. The ‘ example’ answers below suggest that each skill is developing well.

Q1 Has he made the purpose for this writing obvious?

Does he know why he’s writing?

A Yes. He has used a recognisable text form (narrative). He knows that its purpose is to entertain because he has tried to make his story exciting.

Q2 Is he clearly targeting a particular audience?

Does he know who he’s writing for?

A Yes. He has written a draft for a picture book for young children and has used appropriate language (simple words) to suit that audience.

Q3 Do the ideas flow in a logical order?

Does it make overall sense from start to finish?

A Yes. I get a clear picture of the storyline as I read.

Q4 Has he elaborated on any ideas, events, people or characters?

Has he given any details? Does he understand that writers attempt to create images in their readers’ minds through careful use of descriptive language?

A Yes. He has written more than one sentence to describe an event, and has used some adjectives and adverbs to describe the characters.

Q5 Is there any evidence that he has proof-read his writing and edited it?

Has he reviewed his writing along the way, and/or after he has finished?

A Yes. There are some crossed out words or passages. Words have been added to replace some that he has crossed out.There’s an arrow showing he wants to move a sentence to a different place.   There are some lines down one side that suggest paragraphs. Some mis-spelt words are underlined.

How To Get Your Child To Write provides activities to help overcome writing problems, motivating even the most reluctant writers and improving writing skills dramatically.

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When I’ve asked children this question, I’ve had responses like You get to understand what other people think, You get to ask questions, You can tell people how you feel, You hear ideas or You get friends.

When children are involved in writing activities that begin with talking, they begin to notice the value of talk in helping them write about a topic or develop a particular writing skill.

The idea that social interaction, as in talking, actually helps learning is not a new one. It forms the basis of the theory of social constructivism, the origin of which is largely attributed to a Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky. When there is guided ‘talk’ as part of a writing task, each person’s particular background and previous experiences adds to the development of their own and others’ performance.

As an educator in a classroom, structuring writing tasks so that all students will be active in sharing their thoughts, efforts and opinions in a productive and meaningful way can be challenging. Educators become more facilitators of learning in this situation. They set up and manage processes in which they take more of a back seat. They guide students in the desired direction through the art of strategic questioning and feedback.

As a parent you can have a one-on-one situation so it’s much easier. If you can become, for a little while, another person discussing an idea within a task, rather than the parent, you will be amazed at how your child’s involvement in his own learning increases.

If your child is reluctant to write, you’ve probably been wishing that one day, sooner rather than later, he would start taking some responsibility for his own learning.

You can make it happen. All you need is to adapt how you talk with him about his writing, using my ebook How To Get Your Child To Write. It tells you exactly how to approach the topic of his writing in a non-threatening way and get him writing without any stress, either on your part or his.

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