I am honored to be Bree Ogden’s Hot Blogger this month! Please head over to This Literary Life where you can read suggestions for encouraging young writing talent. Because I focus on tips for children who are not struggling with diagnosable learning difficulties, I also want to recommend the excellent article “Stealth Dyslexia & Writing,” by Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide, especially for parents whose children are verbally gifted but who have “severe handwriting impairment” or “spelling difficulties in a child’s written output that are far out of character with either their general language, working memory, or attention skills.”
Thanks, Bree, for the opportunity!
I’ve read your article last week and really, really loved this.
It reminds me of Anne Fadiman’s “Ex Libris”, where she talks about parents complaining that their children don’t read. And she says: “Yeah, sure the children don’t read! Their rooms are full of books, but they never see their parents read, pick up a book, the shelves in the living room are not stuffed with books! So how come these people are wondering that their kids are not used to reading?”
I think, this is also true for writing. Although I have to confess, that my Mum still wonders where I got it from … She avoids writing whenever possible. 😉
I’m so sorry I didn’t notice this comment before now! Thanks very much. The influence for your own writing must have skipped a generation. 🙂