Motivating reluctant writers in the classroom
For some children literacy and specifically writing fills them with dread and the thought of writing a story causes a great deal of anxiety to them. This may be for a number of reasons such as fear of spelling the words correctly, fine motor skills issues that make it physically difficult to write or struggling for ideas, whichever of these reasons is causing the pupil to be reluctant to write it is the teacher’s job to try to help and support these children so that they can become confident writers in the future.
Motivating children to want to write is a key principle here and different stimuli work for different children. It is thought that boy writers are more inclined to prefer non-fiction writing such as instructions or reports and girl writers are more motivated to write stories however this is a generalisation and is not always the case. Boys may be motivated to write a story if it is an adventure story or if it is set out as a graphic novel or cartoon strip and girls may enjoy writing a non-fiction booklet about a topic that interests them.
Once a suitable purpose for writing has been established many children will overcome other issues as long as they are given praise and encouragement for their efforts along the way.
