Help! My Child's Reading is Improving, but They Can't Write!

I see this a LOT in my tutoring practice! Sometime we feel as if we have failed our child and we simply don't know where to start, but I have a few tips and tricks to help you!

Reading and writing can be a big source of frustration for a LOT of parents and their children. Often times, we send our kids to school and we are expecting them to learn everything they ever needed from the school. When our children struggle, we are left with that empty feeling of, am I doing enough? And, what exactly should I do?

Let me help you out. First of all, don't blame yourself or others. The blame game won't solve the problem. Do your best to determine what is holding your child back. There is a wonderful program online called quill.org. I use it with my students to get a baseline diagnostic of their writing. You can also use it with your child.

Use the information from the diagnostic to determine what they need assistance with. It will tell you if they need support with spelling, sentence structure, or capital letters and punctuation.

If your child is at least in 3rd grade, you can use the tool to outline a plan of action they can practice writing simple sentences. It boosts confidence! But, this is NOT a tool I suggest plopping your child in front of and leaving them to determine what they are doing right or wrong. Why? It involves reading! If your child is a struggling reader, they will need support to use the tool. But be sure to check it out! It may be just what your child needs!

Another simple thing you can do at home is to start with a very simple sentence such as, I see a dog.

Have your child rewrite the sentence but add an adjective to the front of the word dog to describe it, such as: I see a big dog.

Keep adding details, here is an example:

I see a big dog running.

I see a big dog running across the street.

I see a big dog running across the street chasing a cat.

Do you see how this simple idea of adding onto a simple sentence build confidence with sentence structure? It may be an easy way to boost confidence and help your child learn how to improve the quality of their sentences.