Helping Your Child Write a Good Story

If your child can talk and tell a good story, he/she can also write a good story. To help your child improve his writing buy a special writing journal to write his stories in. Talk to your child a lot and listen to your child talk. The more talking you do with your child, the higher his vocabulary will be. The higher his vocabulary is, the better his writing will sound. When you talk to your child about their day ask lots of questions. When you are asking questions, your child is giving you details. Writing good stories include lots of details.

Think of a topic for your child to write about. The topic should be something that interests your child and is best if it is about an event your child remembers doing recently. What did you do at the party? Where is your favorite place to go? What did you do for your birthday? These are good topics for a young child to write about. Before any writing takes place talk to your child about the event. Ask questions like "who" "what happened" "when" to get your child to include the setting and events in the story.

Get a blank piece of paper and draw a rectangle on the top and a rectangle on the bottom. In the middle of the page draw 3 squares. The top rectangle is for the topic sentence. The three squares are for the details. The rectangle at the bottom is for the closing sentence. If you child is able to fill out all the boxes, they just wrote a 5 sentence paragraph. A 5 sentence paragraph is what is expected from a first or second grader and can sometimes be difficult to do.

Before your child writes in each box have them tell you what they are going to write first. Ask him "Does that make sense?" If it does they can write it. Many times the child wants to tell the whole story in the first box, but this is too much. Try to get them to answer "who", "what", and "when" in the first box. After the first box is complete move onto the detail boxes. Remember to once again listen to them before they write to avoid writing too much in each box.

If your child asks you to help them with spelling, don't do it. If you help your child spell they will always depend on you to spell everything and they won't learn to use what they know. If it's a word you know your child knows remind them that they know that word. If not, tell them to streeeecchh out the word. Say the word slooowwwly and write any sounds they hear. It won't be correct, but that's OK. As your child learns more spelling rules you will see their writing improve.

After the three details it's time for the closing sentence. The closing sentence should show some sort of feeling. "I really like going to the park." is a good closing sentence for a story about a park.

I always look at every writer as an "author", so after writing the sentences in the box it's time to Publish the story. When your child publishes their story encourage them to write their best. Make a big deal about the finished product and praise your child for the job well done.