Teaching Kids to Write- One Day at a time

Drum roll…

My 3 biggest tricks for turning kids into writers are: 

1. Repeat the same sayings all through each week. I call them broken record sayings: 

“Writing is a muscle. It gets stronger as you exercise”.

“What are the 3 Know-Knows of writing?

• Know the PURPOSE of each writing.
• Know your AUDIENCE.
• Know the specialized vocabulary for that piece of writing.”

2. Buy journals.

Require 10-30 minutes of free unedited writing every day. Use timer.

The only real rule… the pencils keep moving entire time.

Drawing counts.

So do random sentences like “ I don’t want to write today but I hav too keep my pencil moving. My little red pencil that I got from the doctors after I slipped and fell in the front yard and everyone thought I broke my foot. Nope. But I did a pencil out of it…” (mistakes were intentional on my part)

3. You must journal at the same time.

Writing is a muscle. You can write and your kids need to see you holding a pencil too. While the kids are journaling, you write: letters, lists, cards, silly poems, etc.

My favorite pencil sharpener of all time: demonstrated by my goofiest son.

Adjust the daily time to meet age and ability.

10 minutes is a long time for a younger “I hate writing” person. So start low and add time.

What can they write?

The list is endless: lists, comics, drawings, describe something random, story, poem, rewrote their favorite picture book but change the place and characters and tweak the details to match the switch.

Rules:

• Don’t edit journals.
• No spelling or punctuation or anything!
• Free and creative writing needs to flow without fear of being redirected.

The best way to snuff out enthusiasm is to have a kids fill up a page or two and then correct it and make them rewrite.

The first goal of writing is to write daily, grow to the ability to write freely, and to press into an idea.

You know they are READY starting to learning the writing process when the timer goes off and they beg for a few minutes to finish their thought. Always give it those few minutes.

Once you see them writing daily and diving in and chasing ideas, add another broken record saying.

“Writing is a process. No one sits at a blank piece of paper and writes a perfect anything. Writing is a process.steps to a completed piece.” 

Then say things like, “You’ve already mastered and will keep practicing the first step in the process. Finding an idea and writing a rough draft.

Let’s go a little bit further now.Start thinking about what you’ve written so far and let’s pick ONE of your ideas to push through the whole process.”

Homeschool mom… You’ve got this.

Writing muscles take a LONG time to develop. Daily practice is your best friend!

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