How to encourage 9 year-old to write?

[Oceangreyscale]

My son is smart, creative and loves reading but not writing.
He's not as advanced as he should be at school because all the ideas stay in his head, they don't get onto the page. He's bored by it and very reluctant. Doesn't like drawing much either.

What can we do over the summer to practice?
Holiday diary has been suggested but he hates the idea.
Something more fun?

Is he into sport? Perhaps a review or analysis of something he has seen at the olympics? Even better if he then reads it out

Writing in different styles eg Newspaper report, horror, blog etc?

No interest in sports but the different styles could be fun

What about dictating into a word processing program? MS Word online does this really easily and helps reluctant writers I have taught!

Or write a sentence, and then expand it multiple times.
The cat sat.
The cat sat on the mat.
The brown cat sat on the mat.
....
The sad brown cat sat sprawling on the stripy soft mat whilst waiting longingly for her meal of delicious fish sprinkled with organic egg and ground mouse.

Diary ...during the holidays

Letters to grandma-if you prime her to write back.
Dictating into a word processor.
Lots of drawing-some kids at this age still find writing tiring.
Play consequences.

Is he into superheroes? Could you print out some pictures in comicbook style and get him to add a few sentences for each picture? You could also just print random pictures, and get him to do an expanding sentence about it as above, to help him get started, but then give him permission to go completely off piste and make it as silly as he likes.

Best thing I did for ds was get him write your own comic book, filled with drawings and speech marks even if some of the words are just bang 🤣

Write on a tablet with a pen or even type something up on a word document, that's how I encouraged ds to do his homework as he wouldn't put pen to paper literally!

As for dd her encouragement for writing came from writing lists... shopping, birthdays and Christmases, jobs to do in the house and even a list of activities she would like to do such as beach, Lego, dancing, tv, etc.

Theyve all got to start somewhere!

Another vote for making a comic book

The comic book ideas sound good.

I wonder if he’d like a choose your own adventure book? You know the ones where you have a short passage of writing and then you have to make a choice between 3/4 options of what to do next. Maybe he could try writing like that?You’ve said he’s full of ideas but bad at getting them down and the format might help with that.

Nice ideas thanks very much

I can massively recommend this book:

https://www.examninja.co.uk/rsl-creative-writing-workbook-1-ages-9-13-rsl-education-9781916193185-1916193188/

It's geared towards exam preparation but the exercises in it are superb for encouraging and developing good writing skills.

BBC 500 words competition entry? 2024 entries can’t be submitted yet but he could write one ready to submit in the autumn.

You can buy blank cartoon format books so he do his own.

Any writing and drawing improves small motor skills.

Came to say comic and was beaten to it twice! Also things like shopping lists, signs, instructions, doing you a treasure hunt, and those secret spy kits you can get. Lots of Lego too for physical practice. It can be uncomfortable if you don't do it and sometimes explains reluctance.

Disguise the writing as something else! Try to get him interested in film making, either stop start animation, or making and editing his own films. He will soon find that he needs to plan, make story boards, work out dialogue, organise credits…….

Some children are often reluctant writers because it takes them enormous effort or causes them discomfort. Others are frustrated because they have a "quick mind but a slow pen".
Possibilities:
(a) teach touch-typing e.g. there is/was a package called EnglishType - the advantage of touch-typing is that if their ideas are racing ahead of what they can get down on paper, then touch-typing is much faster than hand-writing, so alleviates frustration.
(b) check there's nothing that makes writing physically arduous or particularly difficult for him. e.g. hypermobility or dysgraphia, or even left-handedness.
(c) make sure the chair and table are a suitable height (adult furniture will leave them too low relative to the table) and that they have the elbow of their writing hand resting on the table (not floating in "free space"), if necessary by angling the chair. An OT recommended a "tripp-trapp" chair to us, which has adjustable height.

Following as my 9 year old ds very similar in almost every single way so far!

Thanks all

He's decided to write about the summer in the style of a captain's log on board a spaceship which is great. Although I do not anticipate smooth sailing (flying?) in keeping it up.

I do think typing would be preferable but do kids not still need to write for exams and such?

He can write, but has little stamina or patience beyond a few lines. Likely he has ADHD so a short attention span for things he doesn't love is also not helping.

Maybe as well as a project over summer, try breaking it up, and make it into a game - my 7 year old is a reluctant writer but when we have ten mins or so I'll (hand) write the first line of a story, then he writes the next line, and so on - it leads to some bonkers stories and is good fun

Sometimes it's difficult for a child to have the ideas and write at the same time. Trying to spell unfamiliar words and still keep the flow of the story can be a challenge for some. Could you begin by getting him to tell you the story and you write it. Then he could read it back. That might encourage him to have lots of ideas without worrying how he was going to write them and just giving up. Maybe write a book together.

Strengthen his hands too with hands on stuff. Find lists on line for ideas to help with this. His hands may be getting tired. There is a lot of correlation between ADHD/ Dyslexia/ dyspraxia etc and he may have slight bits of each.