Writing Archives - Growing In Grace

6 Tips for Homeschooling a Left-Handed Learner

August 27, 2024Tracy

There are two types of trouble a child can have with writing. In our homeschool, we’ve faced both challenges. There’s the challenge of actually getting ideas on paper and organizing thoughts: that’s the challenge most people think of when they hear someone has trouble writing. But there’s also the physical challenge of putting pen or pencil to paper and moving it across the page, of forming the words on paper. Officially, the diagnosis for these types of challenges is a disability called dysgraphia. (You can find the full list of symptoms and a more in depth description click here.) But it’s also a common difficulty in left-handed learners; the challenges are similar.

My son throughout his schooling has had these challenges. Dyslexia flips letters and numbers out of order as he reads and writes, but he also has always found it difficult to form the letters and words and write across a page. (Though his perfectionism can over-compensate in this area and allow him to write beautifully, it’s painfully tedious for him and takes a lot of time.) He’s also left-handed.

In spite of these challenges, we’ve had years where he sailed through schoolwork, with only a bump here and there. Then there are years where, for whatever reason, the challenge rears up like a multi-headed dragon and stops us in our tracks every where we turn. (Last year was one of those years.) So what do you do when these kinds of learning challenges seem to show up in every subject and halt the learning in your homeschool day?

Motivating your Writer with Digital Tools for Writing

February 2, 2021Tracy

bardsy homeschool | homeschool writing tools | digital tools for writing

Motivating my kids to write, even my child who loves writing, can be tricky. Although I have a background in writing and do quite a bit of writing professionally, encouraging my kids through the writing process just isn’t easy! Writing is a process. It’s hard work, even if you are creative. And it can be really discouraging, disillusioning, and confusing. Starting with a great idea is the easy part; seeing that idea through to a final draft of a story is not. If you have little background in writing or are overwhelmed with the process yourself, motivating your child-writer can be even more difficult. What I have appreciated most about Bardsy Homeschool are all of the digital tools for writing that it provides to both encourage and motivate your writer.

Brainstorming with your Reluctant Writer: out-of-the-box ideas for your out-of-the-box learner

April 10, 2017Tracy

Writer’s Block happens even to the most gifted writers, but it is a serious problem for our kids who hate writing or are intimidated by it. My dyslexic daughter definitely falls into the category of the reluctant writer, not that she doesn’t have ideas. This child is always bursting with creative ideas for everything, but trying to find words for those ideas is tough. Even more so if she is required to think of those words on the spot or under pressure.

We know that the first step to writing is brainstorming, compiling a list of ideas and choosing the best from that list. But how do we get our reluctant writers to even get started with this list? Here’s a BIG Tip: don’t make them write it!

I’ve taught writing in many settings over many years—to college freshman, to sophomore and junior English and pre-law majors, to kids in homeschool co-ops, and of course, to my own kids. And one strategy I like to try when working with reluctant or intimidated writers is trying to plug into their other strengths, the areas where they are confident. If I could tap into an area of creativity where they were confident, the ideas flowed much more freely. We all have ideas, but each of us processes those ideas uniquely. Connect with your reluctant writer on their level with their gifts.

Ideas for Brainstorming with your Reluctant Writer

Is your reluctant writer a talker? Let her talk and talk and talk. Ask questions. Encourage her that there are no bad ideas right now. Just whatever pops into her head. You can be her scribe and write down the ideas as she says them, or you can just listen until she finds her favorite ideas and is ready to start writing.
Is your reluctant writer an artist? Let him draw! Don’t make him describe the room with words; let him draw it first and then tell you about his drawing. Let him create a comic strip of the story first, then narrate the story to you from the comic strip. Let him sketch the abandoned shack before he describes it to you. Let him draw a diagram before he tells you the steps to building the marshmallow launcher.
Is your reluctant writer an actor? Let him act out his ideas. If he starts using sound effects instead of words, ask him what is happening. When he’s done, retell the story back to him to see if you understood it correctly. Write down what he says, or record it and let him transcribe the video.

Remind them that bad ideas and good ideas are all a part of this process; sometimes those bad ideas lead to the best ones. If your child is a perfectionist, trying to think of the perfect idea will also lead to reluctance and writer’s block. Try playing some games to get the ideas flowing. A couple of games I love are Story Cubes (there are several varieties) and WriteShop Story Prompts. Play one of these games as a warm up before you get started.

Once the ideas are flowing, help your reluctant writer to capture those ideas before they disappear. Act as the scribe and write down what your child says. Or, use a voice recording device and allow your child to replay her narration as many times as she needs in order to write it down. Writing is a complicated process that we tend to take for granted. And it’s often very tough for our kids, particularly our dyslexic kids, to have an original thought, remember that thought long enough to write it down, and then write it correctly onto paper.

Reluctance usually comes from fear. Remove the fear, the intimidation factor, and you very well could have a budding author in your midst.