Writing: Teaching Your Child the Basics

Writing is such an incredible avenue to relay information and facts, express your thoughts and opinions, and give pleasure and enjoyment to the reader. A good writer will grab the reader's attention, keep them interested, and leave them feeling satisfied. Although this is the ultimate goal of a writer, there is a process we all must go through.

In the early years, your child is exposed to words and then basic subject/verb sentences. A complete sentence with subject/verb and proper punctuation should be the goal. Help your child understand that a good sentence has someone or something doing some kind of action and make sure they have correct punctuation!

Throughout elementary school, they will learn to add descriptive words called adjectives to make their sentences interesting. Asking them key questions such as what kind, which one, how many will help them to be more descriptive. They will also learn to use other kinds of verbs, adverbs, and other parts of speech and finally put three to five sentences together to form a paragraph. Their paragraphs will turn into letters, essays, stories, poems, reports, and information pieces.

During middle school and high school their writing will begin to take shape and they will develop their own style. They will have a wide variety of writing assignments in which they will learn to become better writers.

As a parent, you will watch your child develop as a writer and be able to help them along the way. Here are some tips to help your child with writing during their school years.

Be prepared for writing. Keep pencils, erasers, lined paper, dictionary, and thesaurus handy.

Know the stages of the writing process: Prewriting, Writing, Revising, Editing, and Publishing. Your child will not learn all of these right away and the teacher may have their own style of teaching the writing process. If you are not sure how to help them with a certain stage of writing, ask the teacher.

Punctuation is necessary! Capitalization and end punctuation are simple things to remember, but it's amazing how long it takes for kids to get this.

Help them to form complete sentences, complete paragraphs, and complete thoughts. There should be a definite beginning, middle, and end to writing when your child is in the upper grades.

Make sure they are following the assignment guidelines. Teachers grade on the content, but also on the quality and technical aspect of the writing. Punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, spelling, and word usage are the main things to check before turning in an assignment. Don't rely completely on your computer for spell check because it doesn't catch all errors!

Plagiarism is evil. Your child should never copy information from any source unless credit is given to the source. Plagiarism is wrong at any age. All writing should be in the writer's own words.

Let the writing be your child's own work. You can help them and guide the process for them, but let them come up with the ideas and get them on paper. Believe me, a teacher can tell when a parent has done the assignment for their child. It is especially noticeable in elementary school.

Writing does not have to be boring. Help your child to see that writing can be a tool to give others information or to simply share their opinions and feelings about a topic. Writing a sentence can be quite an accomplishment for a new writer. Encourage your child to always do their best and show that you are proud when they complete a piece of writing.