Writing is an important skill to learn in life, but many kids just don’t find that very exciting. These days, thanks to tech, writing is not as big a part of life as it used to be at home. Other than some homework assignments, your child might not do that much writing at all, which can be detrimental to developing this skill. Although lots of homework is now done on the computer or online, and typing is becoming much more important than writing in general, knowing how to write and having good writing skills is still crucial for everybody. As a parent, there are lots of things that you can do to help your child with learning to write and developing their writing skills.
Start Early
Research shows that early learning is key to the development of both reading and writing skills. When your child is doing exercises that involve the physical act of writing out letters and words, this can help with their ability to read, and this continues long after the early efforts are put in. If you want to help your child develop a strong ability with both reading and writing, then starting as early as possible is key. There are lots of things that you can do to make writing and reading more fun for kids, including downloadable, age-appropriate worksheets from the following page: https://studentreasures.com/teachers-lounge/lesson-plans/second-grade/.
Provide Tools and Resources
Your child is more likely to take an interest in writing if they have a lot of age-appropriate tools to choose from. There are lots of items that you can get for your home that will help encourage your child to write, such as brightly colored pens and felt-tips, fun stationery with their favorite cartoon characters and notepads and diaries that are designed for kids. If your child is more into arts and being creative than they are into writing, then the good news is that with the right tools and items, you can turn writing into a form of creative expression for them and help develop their skills at the same time.
Fun Projects
As with most learning environments for kids, the more fun things are, the more likely they are to learn and develop new skills. As a parent, there are lots of fun writing projects that you might want to get your child involved in to help them practice writing and get better at it. For example, during the holiday season you can get started with making Christmas cards for friends and family, letting your child have free rein when it comes to designing the cards and writing them out. Or you can encourage them to write by getting them to design a poster or an informational brochure on a subject that they are interested in from another subject, like history or science, to practice their writing skills and unleash their creative juices at the same time.
Writing Stories
The good thing about helping your child with developing their writing skills is that it doesn’t have to be boring. Young kids are often full of ideas and stories, so this can be a great way to encourage them to write more and improve their handwriting skills while allowing them to be creative and imaginative at the same time. If your child is always telling stories and coming up with new ideas, then a notepad where they can write them down is a great investment. Some kids are just natural storytellers, and if you have a budding novelist on your hands then this can be a much more fun way for them to practice writing skills rather than simply writing the same words over and over.
Keeping a Diary
Lots of kids like to keep diaries, and encouraging your child to write in a diary can be a great way to not only improve their writing skills but also encourage better mental health and wellbeing. A diary can be a private place for your child to write about how they feel or simply a way to remember what they’ve been doing, that they can keep as they get older and look back on fondly. There are lots of diaries suitable for kids that will definitely encourage your child to write more.
Writing Games
Games and puzzles can also be a fun way for your child to develop their writing skills. Crosswords, for example, will get your child writing down different letters and words while encouraging them to think and learn new things. For even more fun, you could design your own crosswords with puzzles like items in your home or family members that your child has to guess and then write down, rather than the generic ones. All you need is some paper and a pen and pencil, and you may be surprised as to how much fun and laughter you can have with games like these, while learning and developing skills at the same time.
Writing Letters
Writing letters might have been popular back when you were a child, but these days thanks to technology, people aren’t really sending handwritten letters like they once used to – there’s no need to when you can just send a text in a few seconds! However, writing letters can be a lot of fun and there are sure to be plenty of people who would love to receive a letter from your child. Writing thank you letters for birthday gifts from grandparents, for example, is not only a lovely way to help your child develop their writing skills further but it also teaches them an important lesson about gratitude and appreciating the people in our lives who are good to us. You may also want to consider schemes where your children can write to kids in other countries, as a great way to further their writing skills while making new friends and learning more about other cultures.
Writing is a crucial skill for all kids to learn, and lots of the early learning and development is down to parents. Just writing out words on its own can be boring for younger kids, but the good news is that there are fun and interesting ways to encourage your little one to write more.
