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I quit "teaching" literature in 5th grade and let my daughter pick books (from a list of classic literature) to read with no formal  instruction. She enjoyed this approach and has been a voracious reader over the years. After reading Hamlet, she decided she enjoyed Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies and read several of them. At 16, she just took the Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP exam and scored very well. She now has 6 English college credits!  I am, however, struggling with teaching my children writing skills. Any help would be appreciated.

~ Blessings, Laura

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English class includes reading and writing. When you feel tempted to beat yourself up about English instruction, just remember that your child excelling at half that magical formula! College English credits at 16 years old? Amazing!

It's not uncommon for voracious readers to end up struggling with writing. Even professional authors can't write as fast as they can read. To speed up the process of writing, you can teach your child to type, or use a hand-held Digital Voice Recorder to speak the content first, so she can type it later. If dyslexia is an issue, consider Dragon Naturally Speaking to compensate. You can read more about it in my blog post, Compensate for Learning Challenges.

Some voracious readers get great encouragement from writing a novel. Rather than purchasing a standard curriculum, consider Learn to Write the Novel Way for a more enjoyable approach. Did you know that every November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo? You can find resources and encouragement for writing a novel on the NaNoWriMo website.

Be careful about giving too much feedback. So much of writing is finding a "voice" and that voice is different for every writer. Don't try to force your child to write like you do, you want them to learn to write like themselves, only better!

There are some children who will simply do best with feedback provided by an online class. Here are some ideas for online English classes: Homeschool High School – Online English Ideas.

Remember that your child is not struggling with ENGLISH. Your child is only struggling with writing. Give good grades for literature study and do your best with covering the writing at the same time.

Is your child struggling with writing? How do you cover writing in your homeschool? Please share!



Please note: This post was originally published in December 2010 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

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