Why Are Some Students Reluctant Writers?
Many parents and teachers would know that getting ink out of a pen can sometimes be just as difficult as getting blood out of a stone. We exist in a time that devours communication in writing . But, for many kids the development of fundamental skills in this area presents a major problem. There are several barriers that may trouble the student when attempting the chore of writing.
Firstly, the culture where you are educated may be the initial problem to negotiate. Some languages are simpler to puzzle through than others. In this respect , English is an extremely complicated writing system . Many times, words are not written the way they sound and this makes it even more challenging for a young student to learn to spell in line with the accepted conventions . As an example, let’s consider the English phoneme’ough‘. There are at least five ways of reading this sound unit even though the way it looks on the page is unchanged. Yes, English is a seriously involved writing system !
Additionally, writing itself is an extraordinarily involved cognitive task. Ask any writer about the generation of a story idea and you will get some understanding of this difficulty. Writing comprises:
- imagination (the marriage of learned facts and the creation of ‘what if’ possibilities);
- the recall of phrases from storage in long-term memory;
- the capacity to retain ideas and language in working memory;
- fine-motor control in writing the words on the page ;
- the skill of decyphering one’s own writing;
- the ability to recognise errors; and
- being able (and emotionally willing!) to make any necessary changes.
Finally , all this seems difficult enough at the best of times. Yet some students experience additional hurdles in the guise of diagnosed learning disabilities. Disorders such as dyslexia and dysgraphia can create incremental difficulties for these individuals even when they are diagnosed at an early age.
It makes sense that some of us are unwilling when it comes to putting pen to paper . In the next post, we will take a look at some of the skills you can implement to help those reluctant writers.
