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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a mom of a reluctant writer.  He has an avid reading with an incredible vocabulary.  He has hated writing since kindergarten.  He's now in middle school.  His private school has shied away from &quot;teaching&quot; writing.  Teachers assume writing will happen spontaneously. 
Reading and writing are different skill sets. Reading or watching is more passive consuming.  Just because I enjoy eating doesn't mean I know how to cook!  I've heard so many early childhood teachers say, &quot;Love of reading is the most important thing for literacy and writing.  Have a lot of books lying around.&quot;  They mistakenly think teaching mechanics of writing somehow kills creativity.

Writing requires many executive functioning and cognitive skills that might need explicit teaching or support, depending on the students' learning style.  
If teachers don't have the time to give individualized instruction or feedback on sentence or paragraph composition, I agree with the value of writing tutors.  I also highly recommend Killgallon's Sentence Composing and Paragraph for Middle School, etc. There are different levels for elementary, middle, and high schools.

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Spoken like someone who is not a writer.

I went to terrible public schools the majority of my schooling, and a big flagship state school DCUM parents would only consider acceptable for &lt;3.0 GPA students. And actually, I got in with a &lt;3.0 HS GPA. However, I graduated college magna cum laude with a double major in journalism and political science. Why is that relevant? I was a crap student in MS/HS, in part because of undiagnosed inattentive ADD and (drumroll please...) executive functioning issues! Of course, such diagnoses didn't exist back then. I'm almost 40 and I still struggle, but at least there are resources these days.

Anyway, I was never taught how to write in school. I never got &quot;individualized instruction or feedback on sentence or paragraph composition&quot; (though I'm sure DCUM will weigh in with some now). I did, however, start reading voraciously at an early age -- starting in grade school with Babysitter's Club, Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley High, R.L. Stine...then later, Elmore Leonard, John Grisham, James Lee Burke, Dan Brown, James Patterson, Sue Grafton. On my own, I started writing related short stories (today they'd be considered &quot;fanfic,&quot; I think).

OP, do your kids have any natural writing ability, or are you trying to coax blood from a stone? I won't tell you I became a successful professional writer solely because I read a lot; I think I always had a natural ability. That ability was nurtured not by any academic intervention or supplementation, but by constantly reading lots of different kinds of books. My parents didn't push me to do read, though it helped that we had an extensive home library when I was growing up. As a result, in middle school, I simultaneously read Ulysses and a random book about pregnancy :lol:

Would I be better off if I attended better schools, had private writing tutors, or took advanced writing classes? I really don't know. I've managed to have a pretty successful writing career (even changing career fields, but still writing) without any of those luxuries. If money is a concern and your goal is for your kids to excel at writing, you're in luck. The library is free. Encourage your kids to read anything and everything that interests them. I hated the classics but devoured murder mysteries. I didn't love non-fiction, but I really loved doing book reports when I did read it. Use books and reading as a tool to understand, examine, and encourage good writing. If you think a tutor is the best way to do that, go for it. You know your kids best.[/quote]

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