We are just getting through this with DS7 now. He's grade skipped this year into yr4 and the writing pressures have definitely increased.
He has had two major writing projects so far (one research based and one creative). The research-based one caused a lot of tension in our house with deadlines looming, his anxiety about not getting it done evident and my eventual lack of patience at dragging it out of him (I knew it was in there - just very hard for him to sort through the many quickly flowing ideas and get them on the page.)
I organised him a writing tutor (not cheap but WELL worth the expense).
The tutor quickly recognised his love of drawing and used that as the starting point for whatever they were writing. The tutor had patience I didn't have and because the tutor was an 'expert' and I'm just the mum who doesn't know anything
my son listened.
The tutor worked with him a lot in planning what to write.
While his second project still took a lot of time and patience, my son felt more equipped to deal with it. He handed in a fantastically creative piece of writing, on time, and mostly under his own steam. (alexfamtx it was 3 A4 notebook pages long!! Prevously he'd write as little as possible)
It was a real eye opener for me because while I suspected he could write; I finally have the evidence and he's just SO proud.
We have now cancelled the tutor as they have got us over the hump and it has served its purpose.
Might be worth a shot.
