So far I have discussed how children can experience anxiety when studying and working on tasks in Mathematics however today we are going to look at children who are reluctant writers.
I’m going to briefly discuss some observations I have about this issue and then quickly move onto a few suggestions for getting children to be more involved and keener when they are writing.
A lot of children suffer from cognitive overload when they are writing and this is why it can be seen an arduous task, one they do not want to undertake. Much is often made about how children can’t write properly and how grammar standards are not what they used to be but in actual fact the expectations for grammar and writing are high. Could you write a persuasive text that includes modal verbs, the subjunctive form, rhetorical questions and relative clauses? Or a Science Fiction story with expended noun phrases, metaphors, abstract nouns and complex sentences?
It’s a lot isn’t it? This is why children can often be reluctant to write. This and the fact that there is a packed curriculum and children can feel like they can’t produce what is required..
You might recognise some of what I’m saying and you may unfortunately find yourself with a reluctant writer. I’m going to make some suggestions for increasing engagement. They aren’t silver bullets but they might be enough to move things around and change the most important ingredient – mindset. I’ve outlined above why a child’s mindset can become negative. I will in each of my suggestions discuss the strategy and explain how it could change a child’s mindset.
Like with my Maths anxiety article I will spread suggestions over a couple of articles.
Pictures:
Talk to any teachers and if they have been teaching for a while they will probably tell you that using pictures to get children writing is a great strategy. I’m going to be using pictures that are free to use as I’m putting this online but as a parent you can search for any pictures that engages your child
Pictures can be used to get children hooked into the task, basically used as a stimulus.
- It could be what happens when you walked through this portal?
- Are you scared?
- Are you excited?
- What can you feel? See? Hear? Smell?
- What bought you here?
Let’s look at this next picture.
Imagine you are standing here.
Pick a character.
- What can you see?
- Hear?
- Feel?
- Smell?
- Why are you here?
- What is the back story?
Sometimes I get children to use post it notes to jot down their initial ideas in response to these questions and put them around the page. As before it takes away the fear and the reluctance to put pen to paper and you can aim to maybe include an expanded noun phrase or a simile without fear of making an error.
These pictures both link with established genres – in picture 1 we have the classic portal story whether Science Fiction or Fantasy (think The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). This image can let children go where their imagination takes them. The 2nd picture obviously could be linked to King Arthur type stories or a historical recount of Kind Alfred (It’s actually a depiction of Alfred rallying forces from Hampshire and the West Country before the battle of Edgington, if you’re a History geek like me it’s nice to know these things!)
Why all the questions? Children will often have ideas but if they don’t they can answer the questions to help them get started.
The point is though that they just write – the task gives everyone an equal starting point and they can use the questions to just get their ideas down. Too much input and grammar can stop the brain working.
At the start of the exercise they are given a pretty free reign, they can then proof read and improve their work after and by this point they will also be engaged in their story and want to do a good job.
It’s about enthusing them!
I have upload a few more starter pictures that I have used – I will also continue to do this in the coming weeks.
These pictures come with prompts:
That’s enough for now.
I will continue add more strategies in the coming weeks.
In the meantime feel free to contract us if you have any tuition needs.