Tackling an assigned writing activity, year 2: first ask why, what is the purpose of the lesson.

by Beverley Paine, Aug 2022

A homeschooling mum in the group asked for advice on how to tackle a paragraph writing exercise in her child's year 2 learning program when the child struggles with spelling and writing, wanting to know how she could adapt the exercise for her child.

In situations such as this, I'd ask: what is the purpose of the exercise? Is it to understand the structure of a piece of writing? Or is to prove that one is capable of creating a piece of structured writing? At age 7 my bet is that because most kids are starting to read around about now, understanding that words are collected into ideas that are conveyed in sentences and paragraphs, and that is usually accompanied by a brief introduction before going into detail and then just as briefly summed up after, is the actual purpose. This, as another experienced home educator pointed out, can (and should be in my opinion) done by and through conversation.

Point out to the child that people start to do this naturally when they are talking from a fairly early age. If we want to share some information about an event or activity that happened, something we saw or read or just did, we usually start with a few words that form an introduction, which gets the other person's attention.

For example, my 7 year old grandson did this yesterday. He said, "Do you want to know about a funny thing I saw?" That's the introduction. I said okay and he then went into detail about the action and punchline and then concluded by telling me where he saw it (a video). He's getting the gist of how to have a conversation and the basic structure of story telling.

His mum can tick that off the curriculum outcomes checklist!
So okay, that's not writing, but writing it down is a different skill. And I honestly believe that it will come later - the important part at this stage is understanding.

Because he is an avid reader he'll be picking up naturally (without consciously noticing it) that authors use this structure all the time in story telling. Even if he wasn't an avid reader, he'd be noticing it in the same way when his parents or siblings read to him.

One day, when he becomes more proficient at holding a pen or better at typing on a keyboard, and has a story to tell and I'm not in earshot, he can communicate it by writing. He'll already know how to arrange that because of the many conversations he's had where people have listened attentively and responded to the information he's imparted. And then, if he wants or needs to communicate that to a broader audience, he can learn some quick tips on how to structure and organise his text, because by then it will all make sense.