Let’s work on it
How do you get children to write especially younger children about eight to twelve years old? If you could get them to read then getting them to write would be less of a problem. It is good advice to encourage more writing in order to cultivate writing skills. The more writing practice students get the better they will write eventually. But first you have to get them writing.
Have discussions before the writing starts
My experience as a tutor has revealed that if I have a discussion about the subject or area on which I want the students to write I get some interest. A discussion is also a way to discover how much knowledge your student has about the subject. Writing will depend on knowledge or feelings or opinion about a subject. Younger children may not have enough knowledge about many subject areas or even events. When you realise that the student does not know much about the topic, then the discussion allows you to help fill that gap.
Provide helpful resources
Prepare purposefully and lead your students to resources that give them information. An article from a newspaper can help and so can a video. Use examples or excerpts from books to share information. Of course it is best that your resources are examples of good writing and logical accurate information. The more opinions or writing that students are introduced to the more information they will have on which to base their opinions. Getting their opinion on the information you are discovering or leading them to is another way they can practise expressing themselves. The more they share their opinion in a discussion the more confident they will become in expressing themselves through writing. Later you can develop their analytical skills as you have them recognise and respond to faulty information and arguments.
Model good writing
The articles and books you introduce to students should also be a means of modelling good writing to them. Apart from increasing the student’s knowledge these resources can and should be used to demonstrate writing basics like unity in a paragraph and organisation of information. Dissect a paragraph and show how the writer indicated his main point and how he supported it. Show how all the sentences in the paragraph focus on the same Break down an article and work backwards to illustrate the possible outline of the writer prior to fleshing out the article.
Helping makes it easier
These activities are the building blocks to encourage writing and to provide guidelines and examples. Actual writing must take place though. However these preparations will show how to gather information and will create opportunities to express opinions. Most importantly they will make students feel more confident about writing. Students are reluctant to write because they may not know enough about some topic to write about it. If you can help them with the background and show them how to structure their writing they would be willing to get started on their writing.