My son is doing so well in basically all areas except writing. Has anyone gotten help for this skill for their child and if so, what form did it take?
Would you consider letting him start his own blog? He could write and write on whatever matters to him-- sports, music, whatever.
I would imagine that it begins with practice. Then you could somehow tie it into improving his writing.
Does he read? Avid readers become good writers.
I would suggest a tutor. If you can afford a private one, great. If not reach out to his school. Every dollar I spent on a writing tutor was well spent in view. My son was very self conscience of his writing so finding someone he is comfortable with is important.
Hello, hopefully I can provide you insight from a ‘child’s’ point of view. I’m currently a freshman, but I just started this year and in many ways still view myself as a middle school student. From my experience, as expressed by other commenters, a HUGE part of skilled writing is having a wide vocabulary. The main way to achieve this is to read. I don’t read much anymore, but as a young child I read non-stop, and that is a main component of what contributes to my large vocabulary at my current age. It’s never too late to start however, so I would encourage him to read as much as possible (be sure to make it fun, not boring!), and also get him a tutor to help kickstart his writing skill. Good luck to you and your son!
thank you all who responded! he is reading less than he did and i totally agree on reading overall (i’m a prof. writer myself and was a reading fiend and still am.) but oddly, my son’s only hole is writing itself. the reading comp the vocab - strong. i actually think it’s that they don’t write enough. which makes me wonder how a tutor actually works etc.
So you think his writing is weak? Is it just your assessment or is there outside confirmation?
is his writing weak - it’s def. not terrible but it’s way below his other areas. we have seen this on every state test each year and as he proceeds with grade 7, it’s the only weaker grades he’s bringing home. he never thought of himself as a student and now takes a lot of pride in it so i’d be happy to try to help bring this piece into line with the rest of his skills.
I think that some voracious readers, especially of novels, are weak writers because they aren’t familiar with the form they are trying to produce. A kid who reads novels may not write a good short story and instead get lost in descriptions and dialogue.
Some of it is simply learning what an essay, a short story, a review, etc. needs to look like. If the issue is grammar and punctuation, a tutor can help. Finding something he’d like to write about (sports reporting, reviews of video games ) could help. I recall that DS’ writing assignments at that age were really uninspiring to him. "Why I’m proud to be American " never really made him rush off to produce his best work.
We had the same issue with DS. We asked around locally for a tutor locally and were given the names of several teachers who would never respond to our emails asking if they would tutor DS. Finally we found a tutor that we are quite happy with so far. She gives DS a book to read and then after he reads it and they discuss the book, he is given a writing assignment.
Does he recognize that his writing needs help and is he willing to work on it on his own or with someone? If yes, that’s the first step.
When you say he needs help at writing, be more specific. Trouble structuring a paper? Trouble structuring a paragraph? Trouble structuring a sentence? Getting things from his mind onto paper in a way that doesn’t look like his writing is him actually talking out loud?
Being more specific will help to determine how he can improve. A blog or journal is an option…but someone will have to critique it. Story writing helps him build the skills of beginning-middle-end of a piece of work. Same with essays.
all great advice! it’s really mostly argument building, supporting details and i think a bit of idea generation. the mechanical stuff, i think, we can overcome with some software program.
Just as an observation, I think that for some youngsters that age–especially males–writing is as distasteful an activity as physical education is for many other students. Some boys just don’t care about communicating through the written word, and having to “make things up” or “imagine” things is perceived as ridiculous and worthless. That’s not helpful as a guide for action, but I think it is more than a bit applicable, in many, many cases.
In any case, good luck.
i totally agree. it’s def. not his thing. i don’t see my son every enjoying it but even a 10 percent improvement would get him in line with the rest of his skills which - to our surprise - are a lot stronger than we thought even a few years ago.
I could not disagree more.
^^ All well and good, but I had one such young writer (who devoured books) at this age and the teacher indicated that she had a few every year. They can string together words beautifully but totally lack structure on the paper/story. Why? They borrow style from the books they read but without 300 pages to complete it, there’s a character who mysteriously appears in a train for no reason, a terrically creepy basement in which nothing happens, some clever dialogue, etc. Tippy top scores in reading comprehension and middling scores on the essay on standardized tests in middle school.
Not saying all young writers who read have this issue but it is common. But some do. Perhaps they love getting lost in literature so much themselves that they get lost creating it?
I am guessing that if this resonates with OP, the fix is straightforward. If it doesn’t, she can look for other solutions.
Has this child always had difficulty with writing essays? Is there evidence of difficulty with answering short answer questions on tests - e.g. using just one or two words or a phrase instead of a complete sentence?
There could be a disability issue here that impacts some part of the thoughts-to-paper process. Given that there are umpteen points along that proces where things can be slowed down or just plain go wrong, a formal evaluation might be in order. For some of my students, the only accommodation needed is to be allowed to write with a keyboard rather than with pencil and paper.