I'd appreciate your BTDT experience for how to help a struggling writer.
DS10 has ADHD. He is most affected by slow processing speed.
He is struggling with perfectionism.
He composes in his head, but something breaks down in the process of putting it in paper. It's not handwriting. Typing makes it worse.
He removes important content when he revises.
He ends up with short answer writing that does not address the question, doesn't have supporting details, and is inappropriately oversimplified to the point where a reader will think he doesn't understand what he is talking about.
He abbreviates concepts, distilling them down to an awkward or nonsense phrase that makes no sense to anyone except himself and sometimes me.
He has a writing tutor who is very experienced with gifted children. No progress, just more conflict at home.
He has struggled with writing for years. He does not have any trouble with grammar, spelling, handwriting, outlines/organization, conversation on the topic. He loves English language, adores literature, soaks up the history of rhetoric.
I'm feeling a lot of pressure over his writing because it's limiting what I can do for him for schooling. He's homeschooled now, 4th grade by age, and doing school at high school level *input*, but the *output* isn't there. He wants early college entrance, and besides for the writing problem, he's in a good situation for starting courses at community college. I'm really at the end of what I can teach him at home. He's getting into textbooks that I can't get teacher materials for. I have no idea if he's doing the work right or not! He does not want to go to high school and I'm in agreement that the community college is socially/emotionally a better choice for him. Community college would be lower stress also since he could take just the courseload that's appropriate for his executive functions, rather than mandated 7 classes at a time in high school. I'm feeling pressure to get his writing problems fixed before I'm not able to teach him any more.
Do you have any ideas of how to get him to write more freely or how to juggle his low writing ability with his high ability and need to learn?
