Why do children struggle with their writing?

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This is an age-old question many educators like myself have been facing for a long time. Parents want answers and educators work hard to give them the answers. But, writing takes a LOT of effort.

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When we ask our children to write there is a lot going on.

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👉🏻They need to come up with their idea and store it in their head. This involves their working memory. When kids are struggling with any task due to a learning problem such as Dyslexia, this will compound the problem when they cannot remember words.

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👉🏻Let’s add to the fact that each word they write down needs to be spelled out. If a child is struggling with a spelling issue such as an auditory process disorder which keeps them from hearing the sounds correctly or they can’t tell the difference between “bat” and “pat.”

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👉🏻This can be a very laborious chore for some students and then we add punctuation to the process and they suddenly find themselves with a few words that don’t make any sense. There is no punctuation, and they cannot make sense of what they wrote.

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If this sounds like your child, I have a few suggestions for you.

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✨Be sure your child gets solid practice with phonics. This will help them learn the sound letter connection and make it easier to spell words. If your child is older, begin working on morphology (prefixes, suffixes, root words).

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✨Practice dictation sentences to build understanding. Be sure to review capitalization and punctuation at the same time.

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✨Build writing fluency by having them do copy work. What is that? They simply take something that was written and rewrite it on their paper.

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✨From the copywork, have them change a portion or add a different introduction or ending. This builds confidence with a solid piece of writing as they learn what good writing looks like.

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✨Support them with handwriting so they know the correct way to form their letters. Some students actually do better when they learn cursive handwriting.

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These are just a few simple things you can do to support your child at home.

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If you aren’t feeling confident with the process, find a professional who can help.

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At Tutoring with Sheryl, we are on a mission to help struggling readers, writers, and spellers. Get signed up for your Meet the Tutor session and we can chat about the needs of YOUR child.

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​https://tutoringwithsheryl.tutorbird.com

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“Building Readers and Writers, One Word at a Time”

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