how can I help my son with writing composition skills?

I love Step up to writing.

Go to www.stepuptowriting.com

or Four Square writing from most teacher stores.

THese are great ways to structure your child’s writing to get it organized and have the child feel successful.

Also, check out www.inspiration.com for a computer program that helps orgainze. You can try a free 30 day trial to see if you like it/or your child likes it.

Michelle AZ

One extremely important way to help your child with his writing is to remove the burden of writing with a pencil by teaching him to type. Handwriting is an important skill, but it is likely that it will never be the best way for your son to communicate his thoughts and ideas. The mechanics will always interfere, even if he become more able to automatically produce handwriting. For many children (but not all) typing is easier than writing and allows them to focus on the substance of the writing rather than on trying to remember how to form letters, space things properly, write on the lines, etc.

A second area to explore is ways of helping your child organize his thoughts (and therefore his writing) by using graphic organizers or software such as Inspiration or Draft Builder.

A third thing to look at is the use of spell-checkers, grammar checkers and word prediction software. Word prediction software is excellent for reluctant, struggling writers. A good example of this kind of software is Co:Writer, sold by the Don Johnston company. It is sometimes used in tandem with another program, Write Outloud, that reads back what the child has typed. This can be really helpful to kids who simply can’t see their own typos or who need to hear the sentence before they can understand why it is not correct.

Another approach you might find helpful is to sit down with your child before he begins to write and ask him very specific questions designed to draw out from him what he knows about the topic. Often, kids with writing difficulties have the information in their heads but just can’t get it on the page without some really specific direction. Your questions should not suggest the answer but they should be very specific and proceed sequentially so that the child can get a sense of the logical order in which to present his ideas.

A ‘trick’ I’ve used with students like your son whose spoken language skills are far superior to their written language skills is to have them dictate their essay to me while I type it. Then, at the end, I show them what they’ve done. For the first time, some students will then believe they can be good writers - the proof is there in front of them - I’ve only been typing what they said - and againf for the first time, they get a grasp that writing is just the extension of the thoughts they already have.

Many young students almost see writing as something entirely separate from speaking and thinking - they see it as its own process and a foreign one - when really all writing is is committing one’s thoughts to paper.

I think it’s good to divide the task of writing up, just as you divide up many other skills. Can he give you a topic sentence, I know it is fairly obvious but finesse can come later: “This paper is on jellyfish and how they gather their food.”

Then some substanting ideas: “The jellyfish is transparent, so it blends in with the water.” “The some species of jellyfish have long tentacles that hang in the water.” “The jellyfish has a sting that paralizes fish or other creatures”.

Then to each of these points is he able to give more details: For example, to point three:
“The Man-o-war is considered to have one of the more deadly stings known to humans. It has killed more people than shark bites!”
“Small species have a milder sting but it is very dangerous if you are a very tiny fish.”
etc.

Then a wrap up sentence (again the finesse can come later): “The jellyfish lets dinner come to it. It uses being invisible in the water; having tentacles; and a sting to get it’s food.

Basically it is the old: I tell you what I am going to say. I say it. Then I tell you what I said.

hth,

—des

Step up to Writing has gotten really good reviews, but I am not sure how easy it easy for a parent to implement on their own. Inspiration (free trial download available at the site) is great for helping to generate ideas and organizing them (Draftbuilder also looks great for this but no free trial download so I haven’t been able to test it), but I am not sure how much either software would help with getting the reluctant writer to write nice descriptive sentences.

A really interesting approach for reluctant writers, especially boys, is the Institute for Excellence in Writing. It starts out with the approach of separating the writing process from what you are writing about by using key words to rewrite something someone else has already written, preferrably on a subject of interest to the child. This technique is thoroughly explained on the website — www.writing-edu.com. Go to “newsletters” and click on the article called called “Writing Without Tears.” You could try the simple example in the article with your son and see how he does with it. Just doing this approach for a wide variety of paragraphs would be very helpful. The program itself ratchets up from key word outline rewriting to inserting one at a time one “which” clause, in the paragraph, one quality adjective, one strong action verb, etc. Then it moves on to writing narratives, reports, etc., combining elements of both structure and style.

The program, somewhat unfortunately in my view although the lecturer Is great, is done through videotapes (with accompanying study notebooks). But it is easily done by a parent—many homeschoolers use this program, which can be used for writing in a variety of subjects. On the site you can view samples of the tapes.

One of the previous posters wrote about the teacher typing what the student dictates. I have found that it works well to record what the student says on a cassette tape. I personally would be unable to type as fast as a student writes. Then the flow of the student’s thoughts won’t be interrupted.

I find that having the student have to pause and let me catch up (though I type pretty fast) forces a bit of holding stuff in memory that ends up being helpful when making the transition to doing it on their own.

WriteShop has the same approach as IEW, but without videotapes and, IMO, is easier for a parent to pick up and do. Website is http://writeshop.homestead.com/ WriteShop is meant for the average 7th grader and up (or advanced 6th grader). It can be adapted to advanced 5th graders and average 6th graders by spreading the program out over three years (instead of two years).

Step Up to Writing is a great resource book of ideas for teachers, but really doesn’t offer the parent a systematic approach to teaching writing.

Nancy

Nancy,
I have heard good things about Writeshop on homeschooling boards, but I don’t think I could have got past the first lesson with my reluctant writer—“describe a pencil.” He would have been stymied right from the start. IEW’s initial approach of rewriting a paragraph that someone else has written is much gentler and less intimidating for the pen shy, which is why I so like this program.

So sorry - I posted a message of thanks to all who responded to my cry for help as a new topic in error! I’m losing it!

Lori