How to help 8 year old to improve his writing

[roastedsaltedpeanut]

Hi all,
My 8 year old DS is struggling in English, specifically in writing. His latest assessments for grammar and comprehension were all in the 80% region, but his writing is below expectation. He apparently has good ideas and can verbalise these ideas but struggles to commit these thoughts onto paper.
He still spells phonetically despite doing vocabulary work on the side.
His teacher is rather unhelpful as his only suggestion is to write more at home. But for a reluctant writer simply asking him to write isn't productive.

How do I help a child to want to write and start writing more?

Thank you for reading and any advice and suggestions gratefully received.

Sounds just like my DS2 who is coming to the end of Y7, and improving. He even got an award for English this year, so have hope.

The standard advice is read, read, read. And talk about what you read. I was also able to spend some of lockdown supporting him with his writing when he was in Y5/6. We did extra poetry, as poems don't have to be very long, nor have regular sentence structure!

If you can find something that he knows about, and is interested in, he might be keener to write about that, whether it's some nature notes, or dinosaurs, or his holiday. Sit with him and ask questions. Get him to write down the answers as soon as he's said them, and gradually tie it into one piece of writing.

If his teacher isn't the English lead at the school, you could contact the English lead for advice too.

How is his fine motor? Are his letters well developed, has he got a good grip? If not I would look at finger / hand exercises as well as some gross motor shoulder work. If it’s motor related he may find writing uncomfortable. With spelling it’s just repetition and exposure to spelling rules and patterns. Look at spelling frame for ideas.

Invaluable advices thank you both.

@BlueChampagne He adores Minecraft and coding. We could read games magazines and write about that. I love the idea of having him to write down his answers immediately to build up. I think he maybe overwhelmed by all the structural ideas of paragraphs and complicated sentence structures they are learning. Also the pressure to use interesting and adventurous vocabulary.

@JimmyGrimble Another excellent point. I am not sure if his fine motor skills are good for his age. It is certainly not as good as his younger Lego obsessed brother. His handwriting is very large but legible. He has been told to write smaller and had made some progress. I guess it’s time to break out the playdoh again!

How about a Minecraft-based writing class?

These are just the first two that popped up, I'm sure there's more choice out there:
outschool.com/classes/reluctant-writers-minecraft-edition-7KZ6Gcih
outschool.com/classes/paragraph-writing-workshop-minecraft-RlXvdScD

@RamblingFar wow I have never heard of this outschool site before! Looks great! DS has done well with online lessons during Covid so this would be right up his street. Also, he is particularly fond of the American accent thanks to all the YouTubers!

How is his typing? My DC struggles with writing due to recognised issues and so she types up a lot of her work. The school had to get special dispensation for her Y6 SATS so all her writing element is submitted as typed. This was after all the handwriting interventions didn't really help. You've obviously got time to work on handwriting, but if it is a fine motor skills issue, typing can help get up the confidence around what to write while you try and work on the actual writing.

DS does much prefer typing to writing but I am unsure whether it is a physical (fine motor skills) issue yet. Thanks for the suggestion, I shall bear this in mind.

He is currently researching and writing about Minecraft which he seems to be genuinely interested in and willing to at least try to write.
He is mainly copying key phrases and terms off videos and articles but I suppose this is better than nothing!

My 7yo (Year 2) sounds similar in that the teacher says he can clearly verbalise/has ideas for an outline of a story from the start, middle and end but what he writes isn’t always coherent/match and spelling can be incorrect at times too.

The school think he may have dyslexia traits so he’s had two Senco assessments and we are waiting for the results. His teacher has previously said that reading ability comes first and then the writing will flow and improve once the reading is improved. If you don’t get any progress with the suggestions you’ve already had from op then perhaps ask for the Senco to assess him, but note that his teacher may not agree however you can contact the school directly to discuss as even today dyslexia is not always picked up early. I’m told that there are many facets to dyslexia and it affects everyone differently.

Copying/borrowing good phrases is a known technique from Pie Corbett, called magpie-ing , so don't worry about it. More here www.talk4writing.com/

My son got in to diary of a wimpy kid at that age. It started with me reading them to him but then he was enjoying them so much he read on by himself. This was great for him because he then wanted to keep his own 'journal' so suddenly he was both reading and writing more. Huge improvements within the year. Can't guarantee it would work for your son but who knows.

Has he been assessed for dyslexia?

My DS2 still enjoys the Mrs Wordsmith Storyteller's Illustrated Dictionary.

I suspected dyslexia when he was little but it was dismissed by the GP and the school on lack of foundations.
His reading comprehension is quite good for his age (year 5/year6) but absolutely cannot stand writing. He will tolerate talking about books but won’t go into detail. He prefers to give one word answers. The mine craft suggestions have been life changing. He will not stop talking about all the creepers, hostile mobs, spiders, drowns etc. He had created a Minecraft quiz for me to answer too.

We have worked on it for about a week and he is able to write a few sentences on “uninteresting” subjects too, even though it requires a lot of prompting from me. He complains about painful hand even though his pencil grip looks pretty good to me.

Right now we discuss each sentence together using google and word hippo for interesting facts and adjectives. Then he writes them down slowly. I am hoping by the end of the summer holiday he will be meeting the school’s expectations.

I am buying wimpy kid now! Such a classic, thanks for the reminder!

What are the classic must read books for 8 year old boys? Or funny poems? Thanks!!

I have a son a similar age and hoping to spend some time improving it over the summer. He also struggles spelling and his reading comprehension is probably behind where it should be. However, he does read a lot which I am encouraging and hoping it helps everything click. At the moment, he prefers to read to himself but I am going to try and encourage sitting with me and trying some more challenging ones.
Books he loves - beast quest. Be warned, there's hundreds of them! They are quite simple and he flies through them now, but he loves them so what can I do?!
Tom Gates - he's just started these and couldn't stop laughing
13 storey treehouse
The enchanted wood series
The books by Tom Fletcher were also popular (not the dinosaur ones, he did some for older children)
I'm sure there's more but my mind's gone blank!

One of the things we did when I home educated was narrations. I would read a story or a piece from a history book and the younger ones children would would narrate it back and then as they got older they would write the story in their own words.

Wonderful stuff! Thanks all!
I will take him to the library this weekend. Hopefully I will find at least one of the above mentioned books 🤞

How about captain underpants?

do you have a friend/ grandparent he could write letters to? My son is a reluctant writer but loves writing letters to people!

Sounds great! I shall try that today with him. He would love to write a letter to grandma!

My hand hurts when I write and it's fucking painful! Seriously don't disregard it as a deterrent. If he's happier typing - I'd roll with it for now at home and take the pressure off. DD2 has dyspraxia and when we separate out writing for content (often typed) and handwriting she improves much more in each.

What about comic strips? My kids have a comic making app on their iPads where they can photograph or draw the scenes and then type in the text - that gets them engaged sometimes. Or animating and getting him to write the script out first - again, some good stop motion type apps are out there.

Don't make it into a negative task - if he's wanting to churn out pages and pages about creepers and obsidian and whatever the fuck else - let him. It's a good base for writing - both non-fiction in terms of the different elements used in minecraft, and narrative (if you've got Netflix - look for the Minecraft story mode series - it's terrible but my kids loved it and would discuss the options for story choices - it's kind of a modern version of choose your own adventure books).

Bookwise - Wimpy Kid's been mentioned - loads of other similar ones out there - and my more reluctant child also loves Captain Underpants and Dog Man cartoony style books.

That’s fantastic thank you!
We are heading to library tomorrow morning after football training. Both boys are actually quite excited about going to the library! They are on a mission to hunt down every Minecraft book there is. DS1 is also into chess so I will be looking into getting chess books as another potential subject to write about.
Didn’t get any writing done today. I spent all day gardening instead. The weeds were getting out of control and I managed to convince myself weeding is more important and DS1 writing practice! Now I am feeling guilty

The advices have all been working! DS1 voluntarily wrote three sentences today 🥳🥳🥳
I know this is nothing compared to children his age but for a child who despises writing this may be the pivotal moment I had be praying for!

We got almost all the books mentioned above from the library. I have displayed them book shop style to try to entice the little monkeys to read. Fingers crossed 🤞
thank you for all your help! It’s much appreciated!

Great news 👏