Writing - How Do I Improve My ADD/ADHD Child's Writing Skills?

By Stuart Ackerman  MSc.Ed.,B.A.

      Parents often complain about the difficulty of getting their children with ADD or ADHD to write an essay or report that is longer than five lines. Attention deficit children need extra time and structured help to organize their thoughts and put together a piece of writing.

It’s all about skill building.

One of the main reasons why ADD/ADHD children lack the skills to write is due to the fact that they have missed basic writing skills in class.  Before your child can write a report or an essay, he or she must learn the basic skills (see Learn’Em Good –Writing-).  Here are the essential writing skills your child must learn or re-learn:

1.      Different sentence types.

2.      How to write an introductory sentence.

3.      How to write supporting sentences.

4.      How to write a concluding sentence.

5.      How to put 1-4 together to write a paragraph.

6.      Use linking/transition words to connect paragraphs.

7.      How to write a conclusion.

Give your child writing ideas.

Students with ADD/ADHD have difficulty thinking of writing ideas. You can help your child find and decide on an idea for a piece of writing.  You can do so by:

1.      Reading books to your child.

2.      Showing pictures in books or magazines.

3.      Taking your child’s interests and expanding on them (e.g. if your child is interested in video games, have him write a report on ‘violence and video games’, or if he likes to play hockey he can write about the history of hockey, etc…).

Use a graphic organizer.

A graphic organizer creates sections and delivers a ready-made format that visually helps your child with memory recall (see the next chapter for lessons that require graphic organizers).

Use a word processor.

Fewer tools are more beneficial for your ADD/ADHD child than a word processor (i.e. a computer).  Granted your child has some typing skills (if he doesn’t, you might want to consider teaching him or buying him a program that does), he will benefit a great deal by using a word processor because his body (i.e. fingers) will be constantly moving, his work will be neat (thus giving him a sense of pride and confidence), and he can copy and paste images which will keep him stimulated.