How to Help Your Child With Writing?

In this article, we will consider five steps you should take to encourage your children to start practicing in writing. Let’s get started!

Encourage your children to read

Do you want to teach your kids to express their ideas on paper? If your answer is “yes”, then you should make your children fall in love with books first. The more your kids will read, the more they will want to practice their own writing.

Here are a few tips on how to encourage good reading habits in kids:

• Be an example for your child. If a child sees that his parents read books on a daily basis, he also will want to read
• Don’t offer your child to read any random book that you can find in your house. And don’t force children to read a novel that you read in your childhood. Find a book that is relevant to the interests of your child
• Establish a reading time. Encourage your child to read at least 10 minutes a day for two weeks. It will help to make reading a habit
• Discuss books with your kids and show your interest and support. Ask your child to describe the book’s main characters. Find out whether your child supports the behaviour of the main character

Take advantage of new technologies

Most parents don’t like that their kids spend too much time using their gadgets and surfing the web. For this reason, they do not consider using online tools and services for educational purposes.

But the point is that some of those tools are really helpful for practicing writing and can be used to the child’s advantage if monitored well. And parents should encourage their kids to use them. Find the right resource online and start using.

Here are my top picks of tools to use to help your children with writing:

• Education.com – It’s an educational platform that offers a plethora of free games to practice writing and reading. Show this platform to your children and let them learn in a fun way.
• Grammarly – It’s one of the most popular proofreading tools on the web. This tool can help your kids to learn from their own mistakes and to improve their grammar and vocabulary skills.
• GrabMyEssay – If your child finds it challenging to finish his school assignment, let him use this website. Here your child will find free inspiration essay samples and discover interesting essay topic ideas.
• Turtle Diary. It’s another educational platform with games and other activities that help kids to learn grammar and syntax rules.
• TrustMyPaper – It’s another writing service where your children can find inspiration to write.

Offer your child to start a diary

If your children don’t have a diary, encourage them to start writing the first diary in their lives.

As a parent, you should explain to your son and daughter that the idea behind diary-writing is to learn to express yourself. You should draw the kids’ attention to the fact that no one will ever read their diaries, so they shouldn’t worry about small grammar mistakes they make. They just need to focus on the idea they want to express and write their hearts out.

If you have ever written your own diary, feel free to share your experience with your kids. Tell them how fun it was to fill in the blank pages of your journal – share your story to generate curiosity.

“If your kids reject your offer to start a diary, take them to the large stationery store and show them beautiful diary notebooks. Once they see notebooks with bright shiny covers and funny stickers, they will want to own one”, says Jennifer Smith, a mom of two and a psychology writer at Studicus.

Create a comfortable writing space

If you want your kid to get the most from the writing session, find a relatively quiet spot in your house where nothing will distract him. The balcony, a part of your living room, or your child’s room all work well for this purpose.

The “writing corner” should have access to natural light and fit a small desk with a comfy chair. You can adorn the place with motivational posters or any other stuff that may inspire your son and daughter to practice writing.

Every time your kid will enter his “writing space”, his brain will turn on the “writing mode”. The child will be able to focus on the task and immerse himself in writing.

Host a writing group outside of school

You are not the only parent who wants to help his child to strengthen his writing skills. It’s highly likely that parents of your child’s friends are trying to solve the same issue at home. So why don’t you unite with other moms and dads and provide your kids with a unique, fun writing experience?

You can invite kids and their parents to your house and play a writing game of your choice. Here is an example of the game:

• Split all participants into a few groups
• Pretend that all participants are screenwriters, and each group is responsible for a specific part of the screenplay. For instance, the first group should write an intro and present the main characters. The second group should come up with an idea of what will happen to the characters, and so on.
• Set a specific theme of the screenplay to guide the participants. For example, explain to everyone that the task is to write a story about a squirrel, which loves candies, dislike dogs, and, currently, hurry home for holidays.
• Once the screenplay is written, invite participants to read their pieces of the story. I promise you, the screenplay will be hilarious, and everyone in the room will laugh out loudly.

In conclusion

As a parent, you are responsible for helping your children with writing. So please do your best to encourage your kids to develop their skills.

Be patient, show your love and support, and don’t set any requirements. Let your kids advance their writing skills at their own pace.