Worrying About Writing

© Beverley Paine

Many homeschooling parents worry about their children's writing skills. I have always found it useful to consider exactly what it is I am not happy about. Is it the volume of work produced - perhaps am I comparing it with perceived school student outputs? Or is it the quality of scribing - have I checked out my child's fine motor skills - is the child able to use scissors well, make fiddly models, draw well, etc? Or maybe it is the content - the spelling, punctuation, sentence structure? Perhaps it is the child's motivation or lack of motivation to write. Isolating the exact cause for concern can help to provide solutions.

I then ask myself if my expectations of what my child can do are realistic. Often they are based on a comparison with other children, usually of a similar age. Sometimes I am comparing the child to my own remembered abilities of the same age. I ask if my expectations take into account my child's different learning styles and needs. I recognise children all learn differently. Perhaps I am not providing support for all the ways my child prefers to learn. Perhaps I am tailoring his or her activities to how I preferred to learn or was taught at his or her age.

Having pinpointed my concerns and examined some of the reasons I then think of ways I can make improvements, without imposing unhappy, unwanted or pointless 'busy-work' exercises in writing. Every writing task I set must have meaning in my child's life, and I take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself.

If I am doing some cooking I let Thomas devise his own recipes then help him record them in his own cookbook, sometimes before, sometimes during and sometimes afterwards. We write lots of lists whenever possible; birthday lists, shopping lists, holiday packing lists. Letters are encouraged, although cards and postcards are less threatening for him to write. And I often get the kids to do some writing for me, sometimes just a phone number and address, a note or two when my hands are dirty, addresses on the newsletters, anything for writing practice! It all helps...