Kids Not Like to Write? How to Make Writing a Story Easy

I’ll never forget the day one of my kids had a friend over during the evening while his mom was at a meeting.

He had just broken his arm and had a homework assignment to complete. He was at a loss on how to get his assignment done because he had broken his right arm. His assignment was to use his spelling words in a story. I told him, no problem. Let’s see the words you need to put into the story. He slowly took out his speller and showed me the words.

 Following is the step-by-step sequence of how we woked on his homework assignment.

• I listed the words on a separate sheet of paper, so we could underline them when he used them. 
• We started talking about how he could put them into a story.  We talked about where the story would take place, the time of day,
who would be in the story, and what the character might be doing. That covered the who, what, where, and when that is  needed when writing a story.
• As we talked about those things, I jotted them down. He was ready to start telling me the story.                                                                                                   

• He recited the story, putting in his spelling words, as I wrote it down for him.
• Every once in a while he’d get ahead of himself and I’d say, “Wait a minute, how did he get from here to here? You need to tell us.”
• So he filled in the transition.
• After this session [about 20 minutes], he had his story done.  Had his hand not been in a partial cast, I would have had  him copy it in order to turn it in. But since he couldn’t copy it, I recopied it for him with the transitions put into the correct  places. 

When his mom came to pick him up, she was amazed that he had gotten the assignment done. Up to now, whenever he had to write a story using his spelling words, he felt totally defeated, like he would never be able to hit a nail on its head. He hated this assignment and got it every week. A major battle ensued.

I explained to her how we did it. She never thought that you could have your kids write a story that way. Now, he’ll always hit the nail on the head! Her son is no longer left to his own devices. He has a strategy that works and will help him to always be successful.