Most English/Chinese exams in any country I know, in Primary/Secondary schools, allocate 70% of the marks to writing skills. This includes sentence-making, summarizing, re-write, explaining a given paragraph etc. My A-level exam also asked me to explain a word. In contrast, Multiple-choice or fill-in-blanks questions don’t require writing skill, but take up no more than 30% of the marks.

I guess Singapore exams tend to emphasize mechanics over style, but my first emphasis is content.

All worthwhile writing has meaningful content. Most beginners (including many adults) have problem generating content. Content depends on details of observation, like when/where/who/why/how, numbers, names. Content also depends on vocab. Needless to say, content also depends on imagination (some kids have a lot) and analytical insight.

Some people (including my ex-classmates) are good at talking but not writing. They have content but probably not enough depth in the content. That’s not big problem.

Imitation is fundamental to generating content. Imitation requires slow reading.

With free-flow writing, we don’t worry about repeating ourselves, wrong grammar, incomplete sentences, bad style.. Emphasis is the flow. Try to maintain the flow and not let it dry up.

Free-flow writing is less boring and could become enjoyable after the kid gets past the initial stages.

Mechanics of writing cover grammar, spelling, punctuation, prepositions, unnecessary repetitions… Tutor could help that. Most parents can help that.

I feel one of the better ways to learn the mechanics is polishing up his own writing. That’s where the blogging helps.