Helping Young Children with Writing Skills

Recently I faced a dilemma that was far too familiar. My eight year old child is refusing do the creative writing portions in class. I came across similar circumstances with our eldest son (around the same age). The downside is that it has been a decade, and feels like a lifetime ago. I have a vague idea of how to positively support our son and only wish the teacher would have offered solutions past, "he needs to do the work". So, here I am searching for ways to fix the problem online.

I initially thought it could be a lack of knowing how to structure a paragraph or story. But during the parent/teacher conference he agreed with the teacher that it wasn't "organizational skills". When my husband and I talked to him last night he stated that he simply has no interest in writing about the specific subjects. He is intelligent but his lack of motivation is absolutely exasperating. He is the free spirited child that folds under conventional parenting.

I eventually landed on a website that uses the thought bubble concepts, but had to make what she created (digital scrapbooking program) after I realized the links were not working properly.

The Reading Momma

Character: Who

Setting: When/Where

Problem: What happened

Solution: How did it end

However it was our other son's teacher that ended up being the most informative. With our six year old he is going to be starting something called "Hamburger Writing". Third Grade Thoughts was a huge help with Hamburger Paragraphs.

* Topic Sentence - What is it about

* Supporting Sentence - Descriptive

* Supporting Sentence - Descriptive

* Supporting Sentence - Descriptive

* Summarize Topic Sentence - back to main topic

I wrote out the basic elements on note cards, than taped to a low hanging shelf on his desk.

* Character

* Setting - Time & Place it happens

* Conflict

* Solution

* Point of View

* Theme - Basic Idea of the story or moral