One of the most important skills we practice in school is that of nonfiction writing. It is hard to teach in traditional schools because it almost always requires individual feedback and one on one work time. As a history teacher in a public high school I tried to assign writing projects and quickly learned they took up huge chunks of my precious instructional time. And I was usually unable to meet and work with the students who really needed support and instruction.
Tutoring lends itself really well to this sort of hands on support. I use a terrific writing curriculum developed by Diana Hanbury King, and tailor it to the needs of each student. This program puts a needed focus on writing sentences and paragraphs before a student moves into essays. Once they have really solid grounding in logical sentences and structured paragraphs, the jump into logically organized essays is almost simple. Grammar is reviewed as we go, and simple strategies are employed to make the whole process seem much less daunting.
If you think your child could improve their writing skills, or if they simply need to feel more comfortable and less fearful of the entire process, have them work with me on writing for a semester. It will make a world of difference!
