How can I help my DD to write better stories - any advice welcome!

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My DD is 9yo and goes to a highly selective private school. She does fairly well in all areas but has always found writing a bit of a stuggle.

Her teacher says she has great ideas but struggles to get them onto paper in the allocated time and this will make it difficult for her when she has to sit the 11+ to get into the senior school.

The school have known for 2-3 years that she finds writing essays a bit of a challenge, and I am wondering if there is anything I can do to help her feel more confident about this type of work.

I'm considering using a tutor but teacher feels that they work hard enough at school and I am not convinced that english tutoring is the way forward anyway in terms of instilling confidence.

Does anyone have any ideas??

Hi, What if she keeps a journal or a diary?
When I was around 10, my teacher advice me to keep a diary or journal (sorry I don't know the correct word). She was my language teacher, and even though I had all my education in Spain, I think that advice is useful not matter what language is yours.
She told me, by writing everyday, you get used to think about words to use, and the more you do, it'll become like second nature to use different expressions.

Does your DD have a favourite author?

can you talk lots with her about descriptions? show her something and get her to explain it to you...prompt her with questions...what does it feel like? what is the colour like?

look at her written work and ask her about it again, encouraging her to use words to enhance the readers enjoyment iykwim...what was the weather like? was the lady old and crinkly or young with lovely smooth skin kind of thing...

What strategies have the school given her so far? DD is at a similar sort of school and they do a lot of work on creative writing as it is a big part of the entrance exams for the senior sections. Does your DD write plans before she starts, including vocab or ideas for metaphors she could use? Is it just that she cannot write a complete story within the time or does she struggle with the process full-stop?

If she has creative writing homework, could you do this wih her under "exam conditions". My own DD gets carried away with her writing so we did this a couple of times so she could get an idea of how to pace herself. So out of the hour available at 30 mins in she should be at the main "action", at 15 mins left she should be getting to the conclusion, at 5mins she should be writing the final paragraph and checking spelling etc.

I bought a book to help my dc's get more out of writing it's called Jumpstart Literacy Games & activities for ages 7-14 by Pie Corbett. I think it's brilliant - loads of games focusing on playing around with words, getting the brain ready for writing, games that can be played in a Restaurant, in the car etc. So you can help but still keep it light and fun.

He has also written a book called Jumpstart Storymaking, which might also interest you.

What does the school suggest?

can she not outline a plan quickly and roughly before writing the essay ie start, middle and ending of essay??

This might make it easier for her to stick to what she has in the plan and not deviate and use more time up iyswim.

(By plan I mean just a couple of sentances outlining the direction she wants the essay to go)

I would really encourage her reading as much as possible, but it has to be her choice of reading, no anybody else's IYSWIM.

is it partly a physical problem - that she isn't writing fast enough? If so - can you play reward based writing games with her - you dictate a chunk of a favourite story book and see how quickly you can go and she can write it, with extra rewards for legibility and correct spelling and punctuation.

The school will have covered beginnings, middles, endings. Perhaps you can help her practise writing one key sentence for each story development point, then adding in the detail and dialogue underneath them, so she gets the skeleton plot down. Also get her to play descriptive and imaginative games with you in the car or on walks, using similes,metaphors and just observing the world through all five senses. Once she does that easily, if she slips some of that observation into her stories, her work will be a pleasure to read.

A book I've found very useful for creative writing with my struggling pupils is called "Descriptosaurus" - it's a bit like a thesaurus, but has sections on various different landscapes, settings, weather, physical descriptions of characters, emotions, etc., and in each section, they give not just single words (divided into nouns, verbs etc), but also put those words together into phrases and then the phrases into sentences. It lets children who have ideas, but don't quite know how to put them together, have varying levels of support. They can start out by using some of the sentence structures, but replacing bits of it with other phrases and/or words from the word banks, and eventually move to just using the words independently. It produces some really descriptive writing even from children who otherwise can't get much down on paper because they don't know where to start or how to put their ideas together.

When I was at a private prep school (many years ago) we did a project on a contagious illness which quarantined everyone in school. I know, it sounds bizarre, but we had all sorts of activities to do from it:

Describe symptoms
Arrange timetable/sleeping arrangements
Draft messages to the outside world
Design posters which would be on the school gates
Write a diary
Decide what provisions were needed,
etc

It really caught my imagination and I produced loads of work - when I usually struggled. It's even still stuck in my mind now, many years later, because it was so inspired in my opinion!

There's some really great ideas here - I have ordered the Pie Corbett book

She is very articulate so I have started writing stories that she dictates to me to show her that she can tell good stories. I have also used the 'exam conditions' ideas to show her what is possible in 15 mins, 30 mins and 45 mins.

Thanks so much for all your great ideas

Does she read a lot for pleasure?

Children who enjoy reading and read alot of books will have more ideas and story structures to use in their writing. It's the number one thing I'd work on. Next, before she writes, talk about the story, what are the characters thinking, maybe do some roleplay.

I think the journal / diary idea is a really good one - it will get her into the habit of writing a bit every day. It's the advice that all writers seem to give, and the advice we were given in a creative writing class I did at uni - write something every day and you can't help but improve. You should emphasise that it's not meant to be a 'secret' journal, but something that you can read and comment on, and think of ways together that what she has written can be improved on.

My son school have a POWWOW book (power of word, wonder of word).
Everyday the are given the start of a sentence e.g.

You may not know this but ....
As the door opened ....

The children then have only 5 minutes to write as much as they can using as much descriptive vocabulary as possible.

My son who has a wonderful imagination but hated writing stories has blossomed with his story telling through this simple idea - I'm astonished, and somewhat proud , of some of the writing he is now able to produce.

Does she experience problems with all genres or just "story" writing?

My school uses a number of highly effective teaching strategies.

Pie Corbett - Talk for Writing

Sue Palmer - Writing Skeletons

Ros Wilson - Strategies for immediate impact on writing standards

We also place an emphasis on a smooth handwriting style which certainly "speeds up" writing.

I use this with my Y2 class for a quick warm up activity. It is intended for children your daughter's age but my class love it. The children have until the timer runs out to write an interesting sentence containing the word/words generated by the the programme. You can then select a "good" sentence and ask the children to expand it into a paragraph or even a short essay.

She's probably feeling stressed and that causes her mind to freeze up or she maybe thinks her idea's won't be good enough? Being at a private school she must be surrounded by some pretty brainy children-there is a company called
www.thinkit.co.uk that sell C.D's that help build a child's self esteem (2-6 and 4-11yrs + there is also one on test and study skils). My friend's son who is bright but doesn't "apply" himself listened to one and the following week came home and announced he'd got top marks in his test- so something was working!