Teach Children to Love Writing: Ways Parents Can Encourage Kids to Value Writing
There's much more to writing than teaching children basic skills. Parents can easily instill a love for the writing process which will enrich their child's entire life.
Parents watch in amazement as their child's scribbles seem to magically evolve into carefully formed letters, words and sentences. When children are refining their writing skills during the primary grades is an ideal time for parents to plan activities outside of school that will nurture a love of writing that can enrich a child's entire life.
Model a Love of Writing
Children learn by example and the most important way parents can foster writing is to let them see writing in the home by doing such things as cutting off the television and writing a letter to a friend, writing love note to put into lunch boxes, sending thank you notes to friends, and making personal notes in cards to send for holidays during the year.
Create a Writing Space
Like adults, children find it easier to do something in the home if there is an organized space for working. Let your child select a quiet, private space for writing and drawing. It might be a corner of a room, a hallway, or an unused surface in his room. Materials for the writing area will depend upon the age of the child. Younger children start with just crayons, paper and maybe some stickers. For older children, add pencils with erasers, markers, and perhaps fun stationary created together on the computer.
Encourage Daily Writing
Give your child a journal or notebook to use as a private journal or diary. Schedule a short time each day for writing or drawing in the notebook about things that happen to the child each day. For younger children, you might give the child a book at the beginning of each new month and be sure each page has the date so the child can go back and see what happened on each day. Keep the time for writing short, and the activity one the child will look forward to each day.
Writing Plus Art Equals Fun
Art is one of the easiest ways to motivate children to put words to paper. Young children are natural artists and as they develop into writers, enjoy adding words, sentences then short stories to their creations. Suggested art materials to add to the child's writing area include yarn, scented in markers, press on letters, stamps, stickers, stencils, colored paper, gift wrap,etc.
Share Writing Times Together
Parents should plan activities into the day that value writing, such as shopping with your child for greeting cards for others, selecting post cards when traveling, and writing a letter together to send to a family member. Teach your child how to address a letter and attach a stamp, then travel to the post office together and let the child hand the letter to the postal worker. Even young children can take part in most of these activities.