Teach Your Child to Write

Writing is an essential part of learning throughout a child’s educational career. Children begin to learn how to write simple things such as their name and other small words in kindergarten. Yet, they can be taught how to write at a very early age. Once children know how to hold a pen, parents can begin teaching their children how to write.

If you are teaching young children how to write, be patient as little ones will get frustrated by the pressure parents put on their children, many parents don’t even realize they are doing so. Children pick up on the messages their parents send, therefore if this is fun for you they will feel it is also fun for them.

Preschool
Teaching preschoolers to write can be as simple as printing out handwriting worksheets that they will have to trace. Have fun with this, when your child traces a letter accurately make this a huge deal, “YEAH!. EWhile you are clapping your hands and cheering with each new letter traced correctly your child is ready to do the next one and hear the joy from their parents mouth.

Have fun writing a story together, although while your child is tracing the letters you may have to write the story. Start with a simple scenario, “There once was a little girl who… Eask your child to fill in the blanks. Make this process fun and easy for children, laugh at the funny stuff, or make funny stuff up. “There once was a little girl who had a blue elephant. Or there once was a little girl who always wore a frown, many people thought she looked like a clown.”

Main points to address:

• Make writing fun.
• Make up stories with your child and you can write them down while they are learning to trace their letters.

Grades K-3rd
Have your children become active with local libraries and be an active reader. To write better you should read more, write more and read still more. Have your children copy short books from books, have them write the books on a spiral paper, not to claim as their own only to help them see how a story structure is created.

Make up scenarios for your children to write a story about. You can start with just a character, a young boy who wanted to learn how to play the guitar, or a situation a farmer whose land was in drought, or questions for fantasy stories, what if aliens were real?

These fun scenarios, to name a small few, will have your children ready to write stories for all to read. For additional scenarios you can log onto the link in the resource section of this article. (See *Create a scenario below)

Main points to address:

• Have children copy short books.
• Make up a scenario and have your child write a story using that scenario.

Grades 4th-6th
Have your child make up alternative endings to their favorite books or stories. What if the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk was really a nice guy? What would happen if the witch from Hansel and Gretel was actually a doctor?

Ask these type of questions to your children about their favorite stories or characters in stories. But don’t stop at their favorite stories have them read stories they have never read before and have them create an alternative ending from the story. How else could these characters life happily ever after?

Main points to address:

• Ask your child to read a book and create an alternative ending to that book.
• Be attentive to and excited about your children’s stories.

Resources
Resources that can help you in your venture include:

• Handwriting Worksheets – http://www.writingwizard.longcountdown.com
• Handwriting for Kids – http://www.handwritingforkids.com/handwrite/
• Handwriting Help for Kids – http://www.handwritinghelpforkids.com/
• Library of Congress – http://www.loc.gov/families/index.html
• PBS Young writers Contest – http://pbskids.org/readingrainbow/contest/
• The Young writer’s club – http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~david/derya/ywc.html
• Kid Pub – http://www.kidpub.com
• Writing Workbooks – http://www.writingworkbooks.com

Games for Kids

• Read, Write, think – http://readwritethink.org/materials/wordwizard/
• Learn to write a story – http://www.kidsnewsroom.org
• Write a story – http://www.kids-space.org/story/story.html
• English words and their usage – http://www.brainpop.com/english/seeall/
• *Create a Scenario – http://www.kids-space.org/HPT/1a/11a.html
• Kids on the Net – http://www.kidsonthenet.org.uk/

Posted in Education.

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