When students come to us for a writing assessment, some students can write two pages effortlessly on any given topic (although more than half of it is not on the topic), while others struggle to produce even three sentences with a familiar topic.
The truth is some students naturally have a love for words and stories. They can spend hours reading and writing without feeling bored. Over time, they build familiarity with language, ideas, and sentence structures and writing just comes quite easily to them. There are no shortcuts to write well, you need to read and write a lot.
The second struggle that children face these days when it comes to writing is the deficit in attention and awareness. Good writing is not just about putting words together, it involves paying attention to details in surroundings, and being aware of people’s thoughts and emotions. In addition to that, writing takes time and space to organise ideas, choose the right vocabulary, and structure sentences. And spending 4 to 5 hours on screen every day instead of paying attention to surroundings and taking time to read a book make it harder for children to put in a writing practice.
Finally, writing is a form of art. It is the process of turning a blank page into something meaningful such as a story, an explanation, or a persuasive argument supported by ideas and evidence. It’s very challenging as Stephen King said ‘ Writing is hard because you need to shut down yourself from your real world and go into a different world’.
So what can parents do to help?
So what can parents do to help? One of the most powerful ways is to give children unstructured time, space to read, write as a leisure activity. Give them opportunities to think, and create without pressure of presenting correct spelling and grammar and content.
Most importantly, writing a form of communication. If you don’t know anything about spelling and grammar and paragraphing, you just need to spend time listening to them and pretend to be curious and ask them as many topic questions as you can. The topic can be anything, from a lost bird in a jungle, how to assemble an E-bike or how we sustain level of oil in Australia. The point is to listen to them talk about what they’re interested in and instil their curiosity to understand more. These conversations will help them feel more comfortable to express their ideas, opinions, thoughts and feelings. While communicating with you, they also need to find a wide range of vocab to deliver their messages.