Any ideas for helping ds (aged 9 Y4) to write more?

[SoMuchToBits]

Went to parents' evening yesterday, and ds's teacher said that generally he is doing very well, and working at a high level. No problems with his maths (apart from the presentation which is rather scrawly). He is an extremely good reader, and she said his spelling, punctuation and vocabulary is also generally very good. However, she said that when asked to write a piece of work, he often produces very little. The content of what he does write is fine, but there is very little of it. She did stress that she would rather have a small amount of good quality work than pages of rubbish, but said that she felt he had the ability to write, but wasn't getting it down on paper. She thinks he has all the ideas, and they do get planning time ahead of doing any writing, but she says often when they start doing the actual writing he will sit there for some time before getting anything on paper, and will then take his time over it.

I have asked him about this, and asked him why he thinks he doesn't produce very much, when he obviously has had quite a few ideas for his work. He says that when he sits down to write, and looks at the blank paper, his head just fills up with all sort of other things instead, and he can't seem to concentrate on what he is supposed to be writing about. I should add that the learning environment is quiet, as his teacher is quite strict about noise levels/disruption etc. Also, if he is doing something at home which requires concentration, he has the ability to sit and concentrate for hours (e.g. on drawing something very intricate, or making a complicated model), so I don't think he has general concentration difficulties.

I think one of the problems may be that his mind is always thinking up new things (inventing machines etc), and it is these types of thoughts which distract him, especially if the subject matter he is being asked to write about is boring to him (which happens quite often - he has many interests, but a lot of them are very specific, and don't overlap much with the topics in the school curriculum). Obviously he needs to understand that even if some things are a bit boring to him, he still needs to make an effort and write about them. Any ideas how we can encourage him to do this, and to empty his head of the other things cluttering it up while he is doing a writing task?

[SoMuchToBits]

Any ideas anyone?

[BooKangerooWonders]

can he do a mind map of everything in his head, and try to select what needs to go into the piece of work? Sounds like he needs plenty of spare/rough paper.

[Takver]

Sounds exactly like my dd (except that she does also struggle with spelling). She can also spend hours on lego, drawing, or indeed completing her maths homework (she's genuinely pleased to be given maths work to do at home ) Getting her to produce more than 3 written sentences requires a miracle.

I have to say, that hearing the subjects that she is expected to write about, they don't sound that inspiring (for example, they are never asked to write a story).

Also, she really can't bear to get things wrong - she struggles to accept that the teacher would rather have a page with several errors in it, rather than one perfect sentence. I don't know if your ds is like that?

[SoMuchToBits]

Boo, they do use mindmaps, and also often have a mini whiteboard so they can jot ideas down.

Takver I think you are right about the subjects they have to write about being boring. Last term they had a World War 2 theme, and had to write things like a letter home from an evacuee, an account of an air raid etc. The only thing which remotely interest ds about WW2 is aeroplanes! I did notice that when he was given a story to write (the title of which was "A School Nightmare") he managed to write quite a bit. But unfortunately he is going to have to learn to cope with having to write about "boring stuff", as it's part of the National Curriculum a lot of the time.