Encouraging writing?

[Grover]

Until now Nathan[8] had a big aversion to writing.Just recently he has been writing for fun,making diagrams and instructions on how to make a catapult or cross bow or bionicle.I would really like to encourage him to write creatively -but am not sure where to start.I dont know how much of an imagination he has ...
How much should I correct his spelling errors?I amreally wary of pushing him too much because I dont want him to lose the fun of actually writing,but I need to encourage it and my brain cant think creatively right now.

[cro]

Would he be interested in a pen pal? My 8yo could use some writing practice too.

[ellies mom]

Up front, I should mention that I don't really homeschool. My daughter goes to public school. I supplement what she learns in school with activities that either give practice for things she needs to work on or allows her to further explore the things she is interested in.

When my oldest was really struggling with her handwriting, I made the attempt to separate penmanship from creative writing. So I encouraged a lot of writing on the computer. Sometimes I'd have her dictate to me what she wanted to say and sometimes, I'd let her hunt and peck and write it herself. There are a billion different ways you can encourage writing that is fairly "painless". For example, you could have him write a family newsletter once a week talking about what the family has been doing and what the family will be doing. My daughter has a blog. It is kept private so only invited people can read it. It is a fun way for her relatives to get a peek into her life. Every week at school, they write a letter home in the family letter journal and then we write a letter back. This summer, she has a writing journal. And each week, she has a couple of writing activities she can chose from. For example "Picnic or Restaurant? and why?" or in your case "research catapults and write 3-5 sentences about something you've learned." Or maybe you can have him write a story/report on the merits of his favorite bionicle and how it would fare against another one. Or you could give him story prompts and see where he takes the story. My mom got my oldest a neat book (the series is called "Write me a Story). It had a bunch of stickers and each page had 1-3 squares and then several lines. The idea was that she would put some stickers in the square and then write a story about what is going on in the stickers. You could find funny pictures and have him write about the picture. You could have him draw/write a comic book. To make it extra fun, you could get him special comic book paper. And then publish it for the family.

As far as spelling, this is what her teacher wrote in the front of their first family letter journal.

The purpose of the family journal is to give your child a meaningful way to practice writing skills. You will notice that your child will use both conventional and temporary spelling. As the year progresses, their spelling will continue to improve with many words spelled conventionally. However, be prepared to see a mix of spelling in their writing. This will show that your child is developing as a writer. We encourage temporary spelling because it allows children to develop as writers.

The way it was explained to me was that young children who really focused on spelling words correctly tended to use simpler vocabulary while writing because they typically stuck to words they could spell. While children who used "temporary" spelling used a larger variety of words. What her teacher did was to give them a short list of "no excuse" words. These were words like "the", "and", whatever that they had to spell correctly. As the year went on, the list got longer. She also gave them a laminated sheet with common words that they could refer to and eventually as the child was ready she gave them a "spelling dictionary" so that they could write down the harder words that they wanted to use. For example, if they wanted to use "appreciate", the teacher would tell them how to spell it, they would write it in their dictionary and then they could refer to it later on. But as the kids read more and write more, they tend to pick up on some of the correct spelling just out of familiarity and practice.

[backtobasicsmum]

For us, "spelling" and "creative writing" are two separte things right now. When ever ds1 is doing writing on his own (and yes, lots of it right now is short letters to friends, or to go with the pictures he is drawing) I don't correct spelling. I want him to feel free to just create! We work on spelling, grammer etc at other times. I'm sure that will change as he gets older, but right now, I do just want him to write....bad spelling and all.

Those are excellent topics for a boy to write about! I should add a disclaimer myself; I am a homeschooler who doesn't teach "creative" writing. At all. It's not a skill that will be required beyond grade school. Knowing how to summarize a story and get those thoughts out on paper in a coherent manner is a very important skill, though. His grades clear through college will depend on it.

My kids get most of their writing topics from history and science. When they're learning new writing skills I encourage them to pick a topic they already know forward and backward, so they can focus on the new writing skill alone, instead of the new skill and the content at the same time. Today my oldest was learning a new aspect of telling a story in his English text. His story is a rewrite of a scene from an action movie he really likes. Next time this concept comes up, he'll pull a story from the history he's been studying instead.

For my 7yo boy, I find he can write *much* more if I let him dictate it to me, first. As he comes up with it, I say it back to him (fixing any grammar issues as I do so) to make sure I have it right, then I write it down. Once in awhile he'll ask me to write a story he's made up, and I'll end up writing two full notebook sheets, front and back, with his words. Usually he just narrates the things we've read and learned about. He's starting to write some of them himself, but will do better if I write the first couple sentences first. Next school year, his third grade year, he'll use an actual writing curriculum that will have him rewriting stories from masters of English such as Aesop, Hans Christian Anderson and even Bible passages.

I'm using 'Igniting your writing' curr (currclick.com $10). It is really good at breaking things down and getting kids engaged in their writing. Many good reviews on it from parents of kids who don't like to write and then love the lessons. They also have 3 levels of difficulty so you can use it w/mult. kids or at any age really.
I'd not worry about the spelling so much and concentrate on what is being written and at his age not even stress too much on punct. There are pleanty of prompts online too. Pictures that are story starters, if he enjoys reading have him write about a fav. book or character. Have him write about his fav b-day, vacation, pet, thing to do. If he's into bionicles, have him write a story about them. I used journaling for some short writing too. If we'd done anything fun or had a holiday, even upcoming events, ds would journal about it.

[Katigre]

Why do you want him to focus on creative writing over other types of writing? Does he have a strong foundation in writing already? I have found that students who are NOT natural creative writers tend to do better with creative writing when they have done work in how to form a paragraph/how to brainstorm/outline/and have seen it modeled.

I agree with separating spelling from writing - there are a number of good spelling programs out there.

Do you want to use a writing curriculum? There are a number of good ones that go step by step in writing.