Improving Writing Skills
Importance of Daily Journals for all Age Children
Using a journal with all age children can become an excellent learning tool for improving writing skills.
Getting a child to write may seem like torture. Many children simply do not like to write, for one reason or another. It may be extremely difficult for them to control the movement of the pencil on the paper, or maybe they cannot come up with anything to write about. Unfortunately for those children, the ability to write clearly and legibly is important and they need to learn. A great way to get children to begin to write is to have them keep a simple journal. This can begin as soon as a child can hold a pencil in one hand.
Picture Journals
Young children who do not know their letters cannot write words or sentences but they can draw pictures. One class of preschoolers got excited one day because they "wrote" a Cinderella story. Parents had a simple folded picture book thrust into their hands and one after another each child read his or her story to smiling parents. The pictures were rudimentary and in some cases barely recognizable, but it was their story. This is where writing begins, one person expressing a thought or an idea on paper.
Adding Words to the Pictures
As children learn their letters, encourage them to add first those individual letters and later words they know to their picture journal. This may start simply by signing their name at the bottom of each page, or having a string of random C’s and O’s strung across the lines.
When they start asking how to spell words, use the opportunity to reinforce letter sounds. Ask them what sound it starts with, and help them sound out the word. Alternatively you can tell them to simply “write what it sounds like”. This is called inventive spelling, and as they learn more phonetic rules, help them learn the correct spelling rules in place of inventing their own spelling.
When they can write numbers, show them how to write the date. Get your calendar out and show them what today is, how to write the month, day and year. Allow them to copy this information from your written example first, then as they better understand the concept, off of the calendar itself.
Keeping a Daily Journal
The more letters a child knows, the more you can expect from him in his journal. When an older child asks how to spell a word, use the opportunity to reinforce using a dictionary. The more often you defer to the dictionary, the better your child’s reference skills will become. If you are a bad speller yourself, deferring to a dictionary is an excellent way to hide the fact that you may not remember how to spell the word, and this is ok!
If you have a reluctant child, tell him that he can write anything he wishes, and that no one will read it - and then stick to it! Leave the journal alone unless your child asks you to read it. The important thing at this point is to get your child writing. It truly doesn't matter what they are writing.
You may also be interested in Writing with a learning disability, or other ideas for writing with your children at home.
