It may be be due to the common sense of the human being to do his best in talking and reading but not writing....

Perhaps 'Johnny' lost the ability to be creative in Grade 1, when his teacher said “Be quiet, Johnny”, and hit his knuckles with a metal ruler. He was perhaps subsequently schooled to believe that if he took down some of what his teacher said, he could regurgitate this at test and exam time. This is the way he passed and got into the university system. So up to now he has been a consumer of e.g., research, and has hoodwinked himself to believe that papers and textbooks and lecturers are the sources of all knowledge. He has no idea of how to convert himself into a creator of knowledge.

You may have to rewind history and start from the beginning.

Ask him what he did today. Or ask him to describe what is happening in a busy photograph. Tape it and transcribe it. It will make some sense. Show him how grammar checkers can hint at problems that might need fixing in the text. Get him to conquer his fear of committing anything permanent to paper. Say “This is just for fun”. Show how the text can be manipulated (edited) to make a more readable text (before and after cases). Show how cut-and-paste can put sentences into a logical order and the same with paragraphs and sentences. Cut up pieces of paper from a newspaper article, and ask him to shuffle them into a better order.

Teach him that real writers scribble down rubbish and slowly refine it until it makes sense, and then they get some feedback from tolerant friends. He must emulate their practice to lose his fear.

https://www.amazon.com/Ian-Kennedy/e/B01I6L09X2

Dear Dr Heli,

It is good news to say  ''who is able to find and read plenty of research and talk about it''  This is a good place to start. Writing scientific research needs learning and practice. If you wonder why this student  unable to write a proper essay; so lots of education system depends on rectifying not to understand or to write a creative essay. The good news is  when I have a clear diagnosis  in this case I refer the student  to the writing clinic and with my help as well. This our role as educators to help young scientists and no wonder.

Good luck

I teach writing to native English speakers and I find the same thing.  I have not researched it, because it is not my focus, but I am convinced that speaking and writing use very different parts of the brain, and the writing part of often less trained.

But it is interesting -- my informal survey reveals that students who read for pleasure a lot in their younger years are almost always better writers than those who only read when they need to.  I assume this is the result of good role models for how words fit together in the books they have read.

Dear Michael it is true that people manage to speak and even read but cannot write perfectly.We all know that among the four skills LSRW 'writing' comes last. That clearly shows that it is difficult to master the skill of writing. It needs a lot of creative thinking and creativity. Unless and until people try to perfect themselves in the art of writing with proper vocabulary and punctuation, the very purpose stays defeated.

Thank you all for your answers so far! You seem mainly to think that it is a matter of training. I know no better myself, because I am a linguist, not a brain specialist. I have nevertheless wondered if it could also have to do with how this student's brain works, as Michael suggests.

The student has participated in a writing clinic.

It is also interesting that s/he has learned a foreign language and is able to use it well, except in writing.

I plan to help this student with writing, so I will consider all your responses!

It does not help to show our students perfect examples of writing. We have to show them that the process of writing is one of much revision, with many stops and starts, many dead ends. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer%27s_block

Those people , speak and read, because they say what they knowu of their public simple life!  and when they read, they read the words or results of others ! So , in both cases they dont need that thinking ! Meanwhile, when they write, they need to think enough to enable them to write ! The depth and width of that thinking in any branch of science , is the bricks of their writing building ! Thus, the language of writing, is the container of science, art, religion , ....etc , without  understanding that thinking, it will be difficult to write, for writing is not a matter of absolute training , but, it is the talent of thinking before  everything could help writing.  

Thank you for the further comments! It is true that the student aims at perfection and is suffering from some kind of a writer's block. However, I have never met a similar case. There is a huge gap between the student's willingness to produce a fine essay and his/her inability to cope with the task. S/he has taken the same course several times. A normal student would have already given up. We also do not give the students examples of perfect essays during the course but rather make them write in stages, comment on their plans and drafts, and give them chances to change and revise their work.

It is also true that the student is not able to think in the way we expect students to learn to think at the university. However, at the same time, s/he has original ideas which are based on the literature s/he has read and which could be developed further into thesis work. 

I am confronted with similar issues but our focus at the higher education institution is centered on content and writing is secondary which is troubling undeniably. You could perhaps, get this student to attend academic writing courses which could help to a certain extent. 

I am sure, with using of computer, some dyslexic can avoids the problems

Because they are classes of diferent operant behavior., i e, the conrol of those classes of behavior are diferent. To learn one did not guarantee the learning the others. Its necessary more, and much more training to write than the others classes. There is no a distribution of igual time in the tree classes. Much more training is donne with speak as a member of a verbal comunity.

Thank you! I thought that there has to be a difference between learning to speak, learning to read and learning to write. I would like to learn more about it. Unfortunately, I cannot read Portuguese!

As regards using the computer, this student clearly prefers writing notes in a notebook to using the computer. I do not know why; I think I should ask. If s/he copied all the text from the notebook to the computer, that would already constitute materials for a much longer essay than s/he is working on now or for several essays. It is just that the text should be heavily edited so that it would make sense.

Dear Helli.  You can not to read  or speak in portuguese to know about operant behavior. More literature are in english. I recommend to you: 1- Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (volumes years 70-80),  2- The Analysis of Verbal Behavior  3- Skinner, B.F. (1957). Verbal Behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 4- Inesta, E. R. (1975). Técnicas de modificación de conducta. Editorial Trillas. Mexico. (This book is in Spanish and is a very good book about aplicattion  with children with dificulties on operant learning). 4- As you can see I have many difficulties to write in english but a read more or less. 

Hi Heli,

I experienced similar problems with my students. As long as I have searched for the reasons, I realized that I forgot one very important fact. My students have not had a chance to study about doing research, writing argumentative essays, and articles. It is not my students' false and yours is too. It is the problem of having not fully and properly training about what students need in "academic essay".

What I do to fix this issue is simple. I go back to the basic steps and notions in practicing writing their ideas about what they can discuss. I try to help my students realize what they need for their academic writing from realizing what is fact or opinion and how to structure their ideas to be written. It should be restarted from the paragraph levels.

In another chance, I realized a totally different case that a person can speak, can read, but impossible to write even words. It was illogical to me because the pairs of skills - Listening speaking and Reading writing usually go together. In two years of working with this special student, I realized that she can write only the words she uses commonly. The rest you have to spell for her and she will forget when you ask again. The problem was about her laziness of memorizing these new words because she thinks she does not need them. So, it is another issue of what is essential for the learners to bring some motivations for them to improve the situations.

Nice day!

Khang

What Madam Heli Tissari has raised is obiviously a very difficult question and complex and we are far from knowing and learning about  ---  how brain is involved in learning to speak, read and write and the influence of multifactorial environmental factors --  family, society, etc. 

As expressed by others there are multiple reasons for the way an individual learns, understands, thinks, learn to speak, read, write a lanugage and as well different languages. In general, even during the learning period when a child learns to speaks and try learn read and later write, there are lot of variation -- some children learn very early to speak, but some later, and some read early but speak later and write very later and all combinations. It also differ in case of mother language as compared with learning a secondary langaguge at  a later time period (later in youth or during school period etc.). We do now know precisely know how a child learns a laugauage, there are different theories as well. Whatever it is, one fundamental basic factor is the human brian and how it is "wired".  It is known that learning to speak, read and write involves coordination of different parts of brain, it also connected with the part of the brain identified with thinking (frontocartal) and possibly other centeres of brain as well. 

In case if all different parts of the brain develop together or with interconnected or consequential developmental growth, possibly learning to speak, read and write can happen consequently and normally. But in general, the development of different parts of the brain differ with each child and during growing period. The reasons could be multifactorial, family, society, individual experiences, one's own (child's) personality and the development of brain during foetus and after and the influence of genes (which are those we are yet to get know, there are some wonderful studies relating to certain aspects of genes and thier influence psychological problems related to learning behaviour in children). 

It is a common experience that some children are good speaking, but many not be at writing  etc. There are examples of normal and non-normal cases as well. In both cases we do not know how things works the way that we observe. In case of non-normal case e.g., stammering or stutering people have problem of speaking and it may not extend to their reading or writing. We also some gifted individuals who were ablet of write at a very early age and also people who can speak many languages and read and write as well. 

I have several examples, there are people who have obtained PhD in sciences etc. who are good speaking, writing and reading their mother tongue, but cannot write other languages e.g. English (for thesis writing), though they might manage to speak English and read. 

I myself have a problem of speaking from my early childhood, which makes me to speak slowly and I will not be able to respond to answer or my reflexactions of speaking is slower than nornal individal who are extreemely good speaking quickly. I am also good at learning a language especially reading -- I will be able to read a language within a month or less, while I speaking a new language takes me time -- possibly years. I do have fassination of learning languages and interest to learn as many as languages as possible from my childhood.

It is also that being multilingual gives problem for my speaking. In case If I want swhitch from one language to other language, it gives me problem to speak like others do, I will take some time to respond. I expect this must be something to do with my brain development of different centeres of learning and their coordination and I do not know about evironmental influences how it has had influenced my speaking behaviour during my early childhood during learning period. 

Possibly your experience with a student who is good at reading and speaking but not so equally in case of writing could be due to the influence of how his or her different centeres of brain have developed during foetus and learning period and how they coordinate. Certainly it can be improved, since brain is one such organ which can be moulded with the training and the environment and individual effort to improve it. Here is where one take the training from experts, have individual motivation to improve and put hardwork to improve. Certainly the person can improve writing to a great extent. Best wishes. 

The talent of writing is irrelevant with either reading or speaking. This can be easily understood by regarding the 4 sections of either TOEFL or IELTS or any otber academic tests of  English for foreigners. Therefore those who can't write as well are easily in need of more practice and writing exercises and should not their writing being compared by other 3 talents.

Dear Heli Tissari,

I think the problem is fear of evaluation. The student has a fear of writing something similar to high-quality papers. The problem starts with Academic writing obstacles such as strict rules to follow, which are most of the student are not familiar with them.

In my opinion, the solution starts with practicing courses for every step in writing. For example  Introduction, Methods,....., etc. however, learning different styles of writing can open the gate to several students to select their writing way. 

We should remember " To write you should read, To speak you should listen."

Keep encourage your student to write on different topics to teach them how to deal with academic terms. 

Motivation is the first and the last step of writing process. 

Best Regards

Musab Tr 

The art and science of writing depends on the understanding of the writer what to write, more than how to write !That for writing needs ideas ! and these ideas come from the ways of thinking. When an architect would like to have a beutiful lion on the front of a house, he needs different sizes , colors, and shapes of bricks, when he stacks them to each other, the beutiful picture of that lion who  drew in his mind will appear. These bricks are the ideas of his thinking !

Dear colleague

It is hard to learn another language but it is possible if you have determination and patience as well as enthusiasm. People may like short cuts and quick time solutions. Relatively speaking is easy than writing so they follow that trend. Many people have good excuse that they don't have enough time for that but actual thing is they have time have no interest and passion on doing such time consuming activities.

Thank you.

The ability to express oneself is not the same as the ability to take in and then summarize what you have taken in.  I teach technical writing and I never ceased to amazed at this difference.  I am not well enough verse in brain functions, but I would bet that taking information in and summarizing it occurs in a different part of the brain than the creative process of writing.  Writing is like art.  In art an artist takes raw materials and puts them together.  Hopefully this "together-ness" shows both the creative process and a wonderful finished product that communicates.  Writing is communicating.  Reading and summarizing is reporting.  I could go on for hours, but I will stop here.  Cheers

Some people have the better power to grasp things quickly, but on the other hand not able to express themselves as they want to. These people in no way are less than the ones with better expression skills. Such people are in need of the environment where they feel comfortable in expressing their inner-selves.

Dear colleague

I think there are a variety of possible answers to this question. Preschoolers can speak a language but don't yet have the skills needed for learning to read and write. There are still whole language groups throughout the world that don't have a written language. They are completely oral. So they obviously wouldn't be able to read and write a language. And also there are people who speak a language in order to have a relationship but they have no need (or time/inclination) to learn to be literate in that language. For example if someone's dad is Arabic but speaks fluent English, mom is American, and they live in the States, the child might learn to speak Arabic  in order to communicate with paternal grandparents but would probably not learn to read or write the language.

Regards 

One of possible answers to this question is language. Some people who their mother language is not scientific language are facing difficulties when they want to express their ideas or to write them in scientific language. 

I agree with most of the above explanations. The reasons are so variable.

Regards

SM Najim

Thank you for all your comments! They give an idea of the spectrum of difficulties which people can face when they need to write something.

It seems to me that my question was so general that I got many rather general answers. I was hoping to get some help in order to understand the student's problem. However, while the answers are interesting, I do not think that they can all apply to my student.

S/he told me that someone had located the problem within the area of communication awareness. I wonder if any of you have heard about that. The student thinks that this means that s/he cannot communicate in a normal way and that someone has to teach him/her how to communicate. However, I think s/he is perfectly able to communicate with other human beings. The problem is of course a problem of communication, but it mainly concerns written communication. I do consider it possible that the student also has some problems with oral communication, but it is difficult to estimate to what extent these two problems overlap.

I have seen other students have similar problems e.g. with using correct grammar, but I have never met a student who would have had such big problems with organizing his/her thoughts on paper. As I must have mentioned, the other side of the coin is that the student really wants to communicate about academic topics.

There are many possible reasons, but there are also ways of solving the problem. My experience of decades teaching writing is that students--at least in the USA--have no longer been taught how to write or even how to form sentences. But as is noted here, there is no necessary connection between ability to speak and ability to write. There has never been a human culture found by anthropologists that lacked speech, but  there are many that do not have written languages. As was noted above, writing must be taught. But if one arrives a college or university with no prior skills, it is overwhelming. One can only--if committed to helping the student--start back at the beginning with the basic ideas of words in logical order and the logic of their own language. For English, it is always, at the core, Subject-Verb-Completer. All the rest builds around that. Yet I find many, many students who speak perfectly well do not recognize that on paper.

Also in my experience, it must start with sentences because they are how we make sense. But orally, we support that with volume, pitch, eye contact, many physical movements. On paper there are only words and punctuation marks--so although some people learn to write by ear (as some can learn music by ear), most need training in grammar and syntax. And it is punctuation as well as syntax that serves the function of volume, pitch, etc.

A very useful text for learning sentences is Nora Bacon's The Well Crafted Sentence. (She is a linguist, and I do not agree with all her choices on a level of style, but that is well beyond the issue raised here.) I also always teach Chomsky's ten basic sentence patterns so that everyone can produce those basic forms and then expand them. The logical sequencing of words in syntax can lead to logical patterns of ideas in an essay.

All this has to be taught, however, and your student probably needs a regular tutor, who is trained in these sources, and practice on writing sentences plus outlining essays.

As it happens, these are old-fashioned strategies that work--as my students have affirmed for decades.

Nancy

Thank you for your answers! There were some completely new ideas in Nancy's post. I will probably need to take a look at the sources which you mention :)

Writing is a skill which you have to develop. If someone has not cultivated the writing skill although that person may be able to read and speak he/she will have difficulty in writing.

I have directed a large college-level writing program for over a decade and we now and again encounter students who are verbally articulate, good readers, but when they turn to writing, no matter how much guidance they are given, they write considerably below what they are capable of orally articulating well. In some cases, as suggested by many on this post, it's a matter of practice. However, in other cases the students are diagnosed with one or more learning disabilities, typically including dysgraphia. Sometimes it can help to have the student dictate the work to Google Voice or other speech transcription software such as Dragonspeak. Practice helps, but in the meantime they should be given support beyond practice because, as with any disability, accommodations can level the playing field. An individual who is able to comprehend written work and articulate ideas well as a speaker can be very successful with the proper accommodations. Meanwhile, however, I'm finding nothing of use in the literature on this for those of us who work with students who experience difficulty as writers.

Thank you! That sounds like how it probably is. I know that a Finnish researcher has worked on this to some extent. Her name is Ritva Ketonen.

Thanks, Heli--I will be sure to look up Ritva Ketonen's work!

Any basic study of linguistics reveals that this is not even a serious question. The two skills are quite different, and writing is not simply a graphic representation of how we speak. It produces emphasis , rhythm, clarity, organization--everything we need for understanding--with syntax, sentence patterns, punctuation, stresses, all the writing conventions--that are done in speech by voice--pitch, volume, pacing--and by body language.

There is no reason to think knowing one would simply include knowing the other.

Nancy

There is a substantial body of research that connects language acquisition and processing to speaking, reading, and writing. I don't think anyone who does a smidge of work in any writing, reading, or speaking-related field is so naive as to think that writing is merely transcribed speech (except those who write screenplay dialogue, where the aim is to capture in writing that level of likeness to speech). We're exploring something a bit different from that.

I did not think that was all, though perhaps there should be a definition of what "we" are exploring. My point was that one skill does not entail the other: the ability to speak, even extremely well, does not necessarily mean writing will come easily.

Perhaps I should add that I have been teaching writing for over 50 years and direct a program for faculty in writing. I have never encountered any student at any level who was not able to write better--or be able to write clearly--if help starts with where they are. And many students do get into college with very limited skills but a great deal of ability to learn them.

Sorry, by "we" I meant those on this thread who are working with a student who demonstrates strong proficiency as a reader and speaker, but demonstrates substantial difficulty in writing, including not only producing but also recognizing sentences, etc. I should preface this by saying that such students are rare. Our writing program is highly collaborative, and we work closely with about 2600 students per year, identifying those students who need additional support and tracking the results. I believe we have in the past six years encountered only three students with this particular issue. This is not the typical profile of the student who, as you put it, has "limited skills." This is a very specific, remarkable gap between (in our instance) high proficiency in reading (including very sophisticated scholarly texts) and in orally summarizing and analyzing the reading, but producing jumbled written texts that do not improve with coaching. Such jumbled writing is typically a sign of dysgraphia or dyslexia, which is a cognitive/visual impairment that affects written language expression but not spoken language expression. Note that such fields as psychology, education, and writing studies have long posited a strong connection between language mastery and processing, and reading/writing/speaking.

When you see a significant disconnect between these, it may flag a disability, in which case "meeting the student where they are" means identifying the specific nature of the disability and the specific intervention and accommodation needed. And that's what we're talking about here, trying to identify the specific issue and how best to intervene. Students with dysgraphia, for example, are increasingly being encouraged to use voice transcription software, which is a partial solution but with what appears to be a visually related cognitive disability the problem remains that the student can't meaningfully revise or proofread; when they try to do so, they just reintroduce the jumble. For shorter texts this isn't as much of a problem as when the text starts to range across a number of pages. But conventional approaches to "skill sets" does not appear to be the answer. It may be the case that you've never encountered a student with this particular issue, by the way. I do not think this is a common problem. That's why I was excited to happen upon Heli's question in my ongoing effort to find someone who is researching this.

First, thank you to Valerie for the definition. I don't think the question began that way, but I have not followed the whole thread, so i could be wrong. When I said the question is not serious, I intended it to be about the logic of the question, not about any questioner. My point is that to ask the question is to assume that speaking skill could or should mean writing skill. But, at the risk of repetition, no one has to be taught to speak. But one must be taught to write. Obviously one can be taught to speak more effectively or more clearly. or one can be taught to speak another language or, if one is an English speaker, even to speak Shakespeare or Chaucer. But unless one is physically prevented from ever hearing speech until about puberty, one will never fully learn it. One acquires language from infancy on by being in an environment of speech. One does not acquire writing in that way.

Writing is a skill learned by study and practice. An intriguing illustration of how hard that would be without teaching is the description, in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, of how he taught himself to read and then write--as a slave he was not allowed to do either. But he got little boys to tell him what letters were in exchange for bits of bread or whatever food he could manage to take out of the house. So he did have "teachers." The arbitrary connections between letters and words are not simply acquired as is speech.

So I think that even though, as has been pointed out, the ability to do these very distinct things is part of a broader ability at language acquisition, it is not surprising that they can also be quite separate.

I almost entirely agree with Dr Dibakar Pal

Why can a person read and speak but not write?

It happens due to lack of writing skills.

Our education system has failed to give more weight on writing skill.

Lack of proper writing skill, writing is also an art. If the students are focused on writing too, I am sure they can write.

Reading is much easier than writing because writing needs to be learned and accurately understood

My best greetings

Very possible. English language is just a dialect of some ethic groups but generally adopted for easy communication because education seems to have root from the region. It is just a normal thing to understand your mother language but unable to write. In Nigeria, nearly 100% of people living in Lagos state can speak English because the city host a lot migrants with different background. Generally speaking, many people learn English language and are able to speak and write but if you grow up in English speaking country you will be able to speak but not write if not educated.

I agree with colleague Zainb A Makawi ,writing is difficult than reading .

Insufficient linguistic proficiency, lack in organizing and structuring the text matters, writing anxiety, lack of ideas and fear of evaluation (as mentioned by Musab A. Al-Tarawni) are the reasons for poor writing skill.

Check out a related publication:-

Article ESL Learners' Writing Skills: Problems, Factors and Suggestions

Dear colleagues, thank you very much for the interesting answers I have read with great care. I agree with everybody, because personal position and personal point of view are expressed.

Dear Prof. Dr. Heli Tissari thank you for the interesting question, obviously excited by many of us scientists, academics and researchers from different countries. Now let me express my message, and it is that: a Roman sentence reads as follows: "The word goes away, the writing remains." When you write even more, you are careful when speaking, to avoid spelling, punctuation, and so on. error. Which error the reader can make you look low-literate, for example. "Freeing the Language" is no less a problem. For me, speaking a foreign language is especially worrying because I watch and follow my speech, I can not relax talking freely. Thanks again for the discussion.

Best regards: Julia Doncheva

I would like to agree with Valerie Ross who answered this question earlier. Students with Executive Functioning challenges connected with a learning disability called Twice Exceptional results in students with this combination not being able to get the information out of their head and on to paper. This is not just related to writing content but also to writing math answers. While they may be brilliant and can verbally explain complex math answers, they cannot write out the answers to a simple timed test. This learning disability is not content related so it spans the curriculum. This is a testable disability and students can be accommodated so they can express their thoughts & answers despite their disability.

I agree with the intelligent submission of Dr. Musab. The great hurdles in writing caused by the rigid conventions on writing culminates the fear in students. We must from day one groom our students to engage in writing assignments and projects allowing them to innovatively write while mainstreaming and nurturing the principles of writing gradually in them.

Really enjoyed reading the responses on the topic. Following!

Solution is through intensifying the subject of giving courses on "Academic Writing" for postgraduate student. Regular courses have to be given. Supervisors' responsibility-in partial- is to admit these students in small group- "writing" workshops in which the supervisor shows practically how he/ she can write pieces of high quality scientific papers.

However, prior to that, student have to learn how to set the rational of their research, select the proper methodologies, refer to the correct bibliography, analyse the finding, digest what they read, improve their English (if it's not the native one) and then to summerize what they read and then start their scientific write- up!

I still remember the advise of my PhD supervisor in Malaysia saying "start your write-up in pieces& not necessarily in the official sequences"- a great advise.

Writing is an art, talking and reading are abilities, All of us can eat, and can give opinion about the dishes, but can't prepare them.

Good question! If you want to write in any topic than you have to increase your reading in particular subject! when you read 100 pages, you may write only few paragraph! So, start writing and take help from expert if need technically or grammatically!

Writing is a backbreaking work which requires the following:

i) Right Thinking

ii) A vigorous & valid ideology

iii) Creative & Narrative panache

The consolidation of these qualities are found in a very few people, or only in literati or people with a good hold on English phraseology and confabulation!

Regards,

Reading and speaking are oral skills mastered easily by learners. As we all know that ( language is basically oral). People begin to speak before they begin to write. However, writing is a much more developed activity that involves complicated skills such as the mechanics of writing which nddd more efforts to be mastered.

First, you have 3 different activities: (1) reading, (2) speaking, and (3) writing. For number (1) you really have no way a judging except through testing or speaking, number (2), which themselves are different than reading. Here you are judging recall and synthesis. So let's take (1) off the table and look at (2). Based on your question, you are constantly cuing your student as to what to say by continually asking questions and giving some guidance. Of course your student can speaking, you are, in fact, telling h/s what to say regarding what h/s read! So, let's get to (3) why are they failing at writing. Well, first, writing is a totally different activity from (1) and (2). (1) and (2) are guided activities. H/S know what to do. For (1), follow the words, something they have been doing since they were 5 or 6 years old. For (2), as noted above, you're guiding them. HOWEVER, (3) is an open-end, creative process. They have a bucket-load of facts, concepts, data, and similar and have to put them into a format that readers can understand. First, problem for them, how do readers understand writing -- something few technical writers recognize or invoke in their writings. Next, writing is a creative activity in which the resources and pieces are there, but the writer has to put them together in a story that can be followed. Now here is the rub, the story your students create is easy to follow for them, but may not be easy to follow for their audience - the problem you note originally. Why is this the case. Easy. Your students understand all the pieces and how they fit together. The pieces and fits are missing for an audience member but are not missing for your students. The students have it all. For example, transitions between sentences, paragraphs, sections, etc. that you cannot follow, follow easily for them because their brains add anything that is missing. I could go on for hours, but I suggest that you make you students read Stunk and White's little book and Gopen and Swan's 1991 (or 1990) article on the Science of Writing Science. Gopen and Swan's article is especially insightful. I have taught technical writing on 3 continents and before each course I read Gopen and Swan. Another wonderful book on writing in general but applies to all writing is William's book Style On Clarity and Grace. This book completely changed by understanding of technical writing. It is very expensive so I suggest getting an older, cheaper edition. As a result of reading this book, both early and later editions, I completely changed my course! Oh, and one more book is Gopen's The Sense of Structure - Writing form the Reader's Perspective. Finally, one last strategy, make you students read their works out loud. What may sound good when one reads ones work to one self can sound really poor when read out loud.

Agree with @Michael W. Marek point of view!

Thank you for your answers! I have no ambitious plans concerning this student right now since she is on sick leave, but all the tips may prove valuable in the long run.

Many western Anglophones, regardless of their education level, are poor writers who struggle with basic sentence structure, grammar, and apppropriate word choice. These things are not taught much (or well) anymore, and in a post-literate screen-focused culture the cognitive skills, attentiveness, and general practices of reading are going extinct. Anyone who has not read widely and deeply cannot be expected to have picked up the rules for good writing, and many people can't learn that way -- they need to go through a more explicit rule-based appproach.

Reading and writing are complementary but discrete skills, the latter imposing a tactile load on the cognitive processes, which perforce is an impairment till writing (through practice) becomes as fluid as reading.

It may be be due to the common sense of the human being to do his best in talking and reading but not writing....

Writting an article is an skill that comes by practice. No one can do it properly in first attempt.

Dear Rai: you are right, but there are basics they need to imagine and follow, then they will get it correct! Thanks

Dear Meghat

I agree with you that imagination and thinking power must be there even after a good practice of writing.

Thank you my dear Rai. Thanks all.

Writing is a skill that required intergration of several skills such as descriptive, Imagenary, creative of ideas, written and constructive to create one or more sentence/s that is understood by other. It needs to have in brain qualtitative and quantitative information and a skill to put properly in written.

The secret lies here, you can pronounce, hear and write your name by your own easely, because you used to do so. Moreover, it is easy for a person to read what have been written by others , but can not write in a way that can be understood by others.

Speaking depends on responses coming directly from brain through tounge. In addition, hearing is clearly and quickly received by brain through ears, while writting needs to have information already stored in our brain to be extrated and translated to meaningful sentenses, which it is not always easy.

I am looking at this problem at the level of a twelve year old child who can speak

moderately well but writes garbled sentences which dont make sense,

I suspect there is panic involved. Perhaps Musab A. Al-Tarawni

and others can comment.

It could be autism, a physiological inability to process hearing the spoken (and even written) word, or what one wants to write, AS it is heard or AS it comes to mind, thereby explaining copious notes or text from which to read and only THEN comprehend, much moreso than peers perhaps.

So a workaround for writing might be to write down/capture as one would speak. Writing isn't as fast as speech (nor speech as instantaneous as thought), so it will appear as notes, choppy, with missing connections. That will require editing and revision, lots of going over, parts to whole (sentences, paragraphs; beginning, middle and end), and final tweaks, as one would SPEAK it, not 'write' it.

We had the same problem trying to educate native peoples of Canada. They did not have a chance to practise writing in their schools, but as soon as they did, they could do some amazing writing!

One has to learn to write and is a skill in itself which has to be acquired independently other reading and speaking.

This is a common problem existing at the initial stage of the research. The writing skill can be improved by reading a lot of published literature and then try to summarize this literature in your own wording. More practice in writing gives you enough confidence to write a research essay and short summary of your findings. After the passage of time writing skills will be gradually increased and you will not find any difficulty regarding writing.

''If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write''.(Martin Luther)