Facebook, Twitter, text messages, emails… all of
these different communication forums have greatly increased our ability to
connect and communicate with others, but they’ve also done our kids a huge
disservice. Instead of focusing on well-written sentences and utilizing strong
vocabulary, they’ve downplayed the necessity of writing and writing well,
encouraging shorthand and poor sentence structure to get a message across to
others in as few characters as possible. It’s no surprise that this type of
poor writing has translated into how kids approach writing at school, and it’s
up to us, as parents, teachers and caregivers, to encourage children to write
and write well. We can do so by:
1.
Encouraging
them to keep a journal. Starting at a very young age,
encourage kids to keep a journal or diary that details their daily happenings.
Getting into the habit of putting pen to paper every day can help foster a love
of writing and translate into writing much more than just their journal
entries. Write with them and show them how to turn ordinary occurrences into
fantastic stories through word usage and descriptions.
2.
Making
a game out of creating short stories. Kids are notorious for
coming up with wild, far-fetched ideas, and love to share them with anyone who
is willing to listen. When you hear your child begin to ramble off another
incredible tale, challenge them to make a short story out of it. Likewise, when
something funny, interesting, or bizarre happens when the two of you are
together, make a game where each of you writes a story about the event and then
swap stories to see the differences in how each of you perceived it. This is a
great way to interact with your kids and encourage them to really expand their
writing skills.
3.
Creating
a scrapbook together. Scrapbooking is a great way to meld
both writing and photography together, as well as spend some quality time with
your kids. As you place the photos onto the scrapbook pages, come up with a few
paragraphs together to describe the memories from each photo and add some text
to the pages.
4.
Having
word swap competitions. When your kids use basic words to
describe people, places, and things, challenge them to come up with better
descriptors in place of the more common word they originally used. Help them
brainstorm words that describe what they’re talking about but are “better” than
the typical words used. This will help them expand their vocabulary and learn
to branch out with their word choices. Once they begin to use these types of
words more regularly they’ll naturally start to implement them into their
writing as well.
5.
Reading
to them on a daily basis. One of the best ways that you can
encourage writing well is to read to your kids on a daily basis and help them
develop an appreciation of the written word. Read everything from fantasy to
mystery to nonfiction, exposing them to a wide variety of writing skills and
approaches. Ask them what kind of writing appeals to them the most and
encourage them to emulate their favorite writers’ styles in their own writing.
About the Author:
This guest post is contributed by Debra Johnson, blogger and editor of
Liveinnanny.com. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: -
jdebra84
@ gmail.com.