Building Good Writers

When I was a kid, I had diaries, the ones with a small lock and key that I could tuck under my pillow. I loved writing about anything that would happen in my day, places I went, people I saw, things I ate.

I especially loved writing about my feelings.

"Dear Diary, today I feel so sad and embarrassed because my mom cut my hair short like a boy!"

And yes, that really did happen when I was in the 4th grade. Fun times.

Writing was a safe space for me to vent and share my day-to-day as well as deal with any emotions I was going through. This was in 1990.

Fast forward 30 years and writing is still an important and necessary outlet but our children are no longer using writing the way we did. We have entered a new world in which those cute furry diaries with locks have been replaced with iPads, laptops, iPhones, Roblox, Snapchat, Tic Toc, and Instagram.

A picture can tell a thousand words, so you no longer actually need the words. This, in essence, is leading to an entire generation of kids who are losing their ability to write.

According to an article written by the New York Times entitled "Why Kids Can't Write,"  students continue to arrive on college campuses needing remediation in basic writing skills. The article explains that "the root of the problem, educators agree, is that teachers have little training in how to teach writing and are often weak or unconfident writers themselves" (Goldstein 2017).

As homeschoolers we can counteract this trend and make sure our children have solid foundations in writing by using a few simple strategies.

Encouraging Quality Writing Through Exposure to Quality Literature

As a homeschooler of four children and an English teacher, writing was always important in our household. My method of creating great writers was to keep quality literature on shelves, in baskets, and chekcing out numeours books from various genres during our weekly library trips.

How does this build great writing?

When your kids consistently listen to and read great literature, they begin to understand what great writing looks like by default.

Quality literature is rich with vocabulary, literary devices, and voices. It is also a place for children to see the complex use of mechanics and grammar.

We can read aloud a great passage from a book to our kids and pause at that comma or semi-colon and ask, "Hmm why is that comma there? What did it do for this sentence? What would happen if we took this comma away? Would it still have the same meaning?

By asking these simple questions we can teach our kids the power of grammar in a way that makes sense and engages them. Grammar books do very little to help kids understand the rules of grammar and how they actually apply to real-life writing. But quality literature does wonders.

Learning to Write Like the Greats

One way to help your children write like the greats is to use a strategy called Mimicking.

Mimicking is the act of taking a quality piece of writing and having your child mimic that paragraph using their own original content.

For example, maybe your child is reading Harry Potter, you can pull a paragraph where they describe Harry Potter's physical appearance, and then have your child mimic that paragraph creating their own physical description of another beloved character. This helps them learn to incorporate detail into their writing and paint a scene for their readers.

The great thing about this strategy is that it can be used across all ages, and for jsut about any type of literary device you want to teach your children.

Building Vocabulary

If you want your kids to be great writers, its also important to build their vocabulary and critical thinking skills.

Most kids who struggle with writing struggle to put their thoughts down on paper or even having the thoughts to put down. And when they do put their words down, they often lack the vocabulary to make their writing sound sophisticated.

In an age where texting and gen Z/Alpha slang is the way most of our kids are communicating, we need to take extra care that our children are building good vocabulary and still respecting writing mechanics when they are writing formally.

Using a vocabulary book alongside their ELA curriculum, even just once a week, can help boost your child’s vocab banks. You can also print weekly word sheets based on their grade levels. Have your child define the words, maing sure they understand the meaning and can spell the word correctly.

Then you can challenge them to use thier new words in sentences and short stories. This helps them apply the new words they’ve learned and think critically about when and how they want to use them.

Wondering what happens if you try all the things and your child still can’t write? Read here to learn about some important red flags that may signal the need for specialized help.