“My son (11) struggles with writing assignments. He states he can’t think of what to write”
You’ve probably run into this with your HomeworkCoach clients. Here’s a way to approach the problem:
Take the ideas and the writing separately. Always talk it through before starting on the writing. Come up with prompts if he just needs one or two sentences. Otherwise talk through what he wants to say in each paragraph. Break the essay down into restating the question, then each point he will make (broken into a series of short sentences that he will elaborate on) and end with a summary. Help him make an outline.
When he is ready to write, consider speech-to-text technology solutions. If they don’t work for him, he could dictate while you write or type, then let him go back to flesh out the ideas, and check for meaning, grammar and spelling. And that his name is on the paper.
Also, very important, if the teacher has provided a rubric, make sure each item on it is covered. Most kids with ADHD hate to follow each small instruction, so you need to be the monitor.
Make sense? The takeaway is separate the thinking from writing tasks.
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