We started Journey Down the Rabbit Trail writing membership because of my reluctant writer. Regular writing programs didn’t work for him because he lacked confidence and drive when it came to writing. He didn’t even want to start because he simply didn’t know how to! I knew we needed to give him some Rabbit Trails magic to make things to change.
On top of this, though, I also needed something that he could be flexible with. Many times reluctant learners need the freedom and flexibility to change things up just a bit. This can easily be transfered over to writing. I came up with three writing tips to help reluctant learners so that you can help your kiddo who may have this same struggle.
1. Include Brainstorming in Your Writing Assignments
This is my number 1 tip because white page syndrome is so real! Starting off a writing assignment with brainstorming helps children organize their thoughts and gain confidence (which is why it was so important to me that we add this to our writing lessons!). It also gives you an opportunity to help model how to organize your thoughts to your child. Children learn a lot from modeling us, so don’t be afraid to give them a lot of ideas at first to help them along. Even older kids who are reluctant may need a lot of help from you at first while they gain this confidence and that is okay! Jot down those ideas using a variety of brainstorming methods to help them get started in their writing.
2. Change up your writing location
Keeping things fresh can be crucial. If you do most of your school work at the kitchen table or the living room, try changing up your location to allow your child’s creative juices flow. We love taking trips outside to the swings or trampoline for this!
3. Allow them to tweek the assignment
We recently had a situation where my son just wasn’t feeling the writing assignment. He was supposed to write a poem, but he really wanted to change it to a short story. I could have forced him to still do it as written, but I love the flexibility we have as homeschoolers to change things up! I had to ask myself, “Would he still get the writing skills he needs by changing this?” “Will he still be writing?” The answer to both of those was yes (because he still did the proper brainstorming for his short story), so we went ahead with his short story. There will be other poems to write on other days!
What writing tips do you have to help reluctant learners?
Those are just some ways that we have made writing easier on my reluctant learner. He has thrived since making these few small changes and all of the inspiration that our writing membership brings him! Do you have any writing tips for reluctant learners? I’d love to hear them! Write a comment below, head to my online homeschool community, or click on the reel above to let us know. Maybe I’ll even feature your tip in a future reel!
We struggle with writing because my little guy has fine motor struggles and other developmental delays. Since he struggles with the fine motor, it makes writing even harder for him. He has OT therapy to help with these struggles. However, for homeschool, sometimes we use stickers with letters on them. Sometimes we use magnetic letters. We do write but have other options as wel since writing can be very frustrating at times. Since he is only in kindergarten, we haven’t gotten to sentences and paragraphs yet.
Allow him to orally tell you what he would write, too! Spelling the words is only a small part of writing. Dictating his writing to you is an amazing foundation in building the writing skills he will use later when his fine motor skills catch up.