Are you bewildered just how to help your child hone their writing skill set? This era of technology doesn’t give the student many opportunities to practice their writing technique. If you want your little one to learn the basics of writing skills, thankfully, there are fun things you can do at home to help them.
Developing strong writing skills set in a child can be a tough task but easy when the fun is incorporated. The fun doesn’t end because even at it’s all about quality and fun in writing. You might be wondering how exactly is ‘fun’ incorporated with learning. Here are tips on how to help the small ones improve and hone their writing skill level.
- Reading frequently
Do you want your child to be a good writer? It goes without saying, good writers tend to read a lot. Avid reading helps them flex their vocabulary muscles so, encourage them to read. Reading exposes kids to vocabulary and they can use this vocabulary in their writing. Reading will expose your child to various types of sentence structures to use in their writing and different methods of using words.
Ensure to read together with the younger children every day. As they grow, encourage them to keep on reading. You will be surprised at how well they will be handling their writing assignments. will also be a crucial guide in the child’s life once learning advances so, you need not fret.
- Making writing fun
Learning how to write can be made interesting, especially for young children whose concentration span is short. Try activities and games that encourage your writing skills. For instance, word games and crossword puzzles are everyone’s ideal way of passing time. Play with your little one ‘write the word ‘game where they search for an item and jot down the word when they find that item.
- Helping them to get started
Jotting down the first sentences or words is always a nightmare even for a seasoned author. With this in mind, always help your child to get started. You can do so by making a mind-map or a list of ideas related to their topic. Better still you can ask them thought-provoking questions.
Perfection is a rare skill to hone in writing, so, encourage your child to write freely. Freewriting ensures that whatever comes to mind is recorded. Tell the child to just write, they can worry about the revisions once they are done writing.
- Using different writing materials
Your kids are mostly used to writing with pencils or pens, right? How about switching things up? Allow them to do finger-painting, and use sidewalk chalk on the driveway or a salt writing tray. These are fun activities for a child and will be accomplished with so much zeal and excitement.
- Investing your time in the child
Every child craves their parents’ time and approval. Ensure your little one knows to have your full attention when they need it. Be by their side to help them with proofreading and spelling difficult words. Making their writing time your priority gives them the confidence and guidance they need.
Being there for your child means, praising their work, acknowledging when they bring home a good piece of writing from school and encouraging them to write as much as possible. You can also ask questions about their work and remind them just how much you love their written content.
- Creating a writing space
Do you have a children’s corner in your house? If not, how about setting up a little corner in your house as their writing area? This will ensure that during writing, your child is free to form distractions and hence can focus on practicing their writing skill. Ensure the special corner is dedicated solely to writing and nothing more.
- Using technology
It is a no-brainer that technology is an integral part of your children’s lives. Many may view the usage of technology as being lazy but, for a learning child, it is useful when it comes to writing, grammar, and spelling feedback. Technology has multiple suggested corrections that force a child not only to notice the misspelled words but also the awkward phrasing. The child then has to spend extra cognitive energy and time thinking about how to correct such things.
Through technology, your child can correct errors and therefore, avoid the embarrassment of numerous eraser marks in their hand-written copies. Which child doesn’t want to outdo the other or impress the teacher, parent, or guardian? Technology is the new normal, help your child embrace it.
- Bring up copying activities
Do you want your child to focus their attention on form, meaning, and use and to incorporate new structures into productive use? Well, suggest copying and memorizing their favorite quotes, poems, or any piece of written language to them.
Teachers and parents loathe plagiarism but ironically, the only way your child can improve on their jotting down skills is by borrowing sentence structures and using them in their writing. Provide them with the specific materials they can borrow ideas from and encourage them to read, understand and write in their own words.
- Writing letters
Writing letters in today’s world is kind of a lost art. How about rekindling this forgotten practice? Distant relatives and friends will love receiving hand-written letters from your child. So, encourage your child to write letters to all these people and their friends. This will be a great method of improving their writing skill.
Encourage your child also to have and write letters to pen-pals. If your child is a bit timid don’t worry, let them write letters for you and leave them lying around in the house where you can find them. It won’t hurt if you return the favor, instead, it will motivate them more. The letters can be about anything from what they had for lunch or dinner, their experience at school, their future goals, and so on.
- Encourage keeping of a journal
A great way of expressing ideas and thoughts is by keeping a journal. The bonus to keeping a journal is improvement in the child’s writing skills. Pick a journal with your child and encourage them to write as much as possible. Encourage them to make daily entries in their journals.
If they are stuck and don’t know what to write, connect them to their interests. Perhaps your son likes Spiderman the cartoon hero, let him create short stories about this superhero. If your daughter is obsessed with the Cinderella story, guide her into re-writing it. They can also create their superheroes and write stories about them. There is nothing wilder than a free imagination.
As the good parent that you are, listen as they read their fictional short stories to you. Share in their journey, the laughs, the heroic acts, and muse over their beautiful writing skill. For all you know, you might be the superhero or wonder woman in their tales. All it takes is for you to listen, guide, and heap praises.
Various learning difficulties affect writing but that shouldn’t stop you from helping your child to shine in writing. The above writing tips will guide you in helping the child excel academically. Follow these tips and watch the transformation in your child. Within no time, they will excel in exams and easily complete their homework assignments.
