Looking for Progress in Writing
If you're not a writer, the idea of teaching writing might intimidate you. If you're a homeschooler trying to teach your kids writing, that might send you running for the hills! 🏃♀️➡️
I'm here to tell you that there is no need to run.
My 10-Year Old’s First Essay
I remember so clearly the day my then 10-year-old daughter asked, "Mama, how do I write an essay?"
I looked at her quizzically, "What do you mean?"
"Well, my teacher wants us to write an essay on our reading but I've never written one."
My mind raced. There it was, the day every homeschooling mom dreads: the day I failed to deliver!
How could I, a writing teacher!, never have thought to teach my daughter how to write formally before? I jumped into quick problem-solving mom mode.
"Ok, don't worry about a thing, I will fix this!"
As a homeschooling mom of 4 and a teacher of writing, you'll be happy to know that I rarely focused on writing with my kids until they were around 10-11 years old. Why?
Because that's when it starts to matter.
Once they reach the upper elementary/ middle school level, your kids will need to learn how to form a proper paragraph and put thoughts down on paper in a coherent way. The good news is that if you have never taught writing up until this point, it's totally fine!
Kids are fast learners and will pick up writing fairly quickly, as did my daughter who is now 16 and an excellent writer. Kids who are older have the motor skills and the hand strength to be able to write, so they tend to pick things up quickly.
Assessing Your Child's Skill with Writing
To get a sense of where your child's writing skills are, the first thing you can do is to give them an informal assessment.
Something like hey "Hey kids let's sit down and do a fun writing activity, I want you guys to write for 45 min without stopping about your most memorable family vacation!"
Make it a challenge, put a timer on the clock, and go!
Once they are done, read through their writing. What stands out to you immediately?
Is their writing organized into paragraphs?
Did they punctuate?
What about those capital letters?
How is the spelling?
Praise them for the good they did and make a list of all the things they need to work on. This will act as your lesson guide, introducing one concept at a time.
For formatting, you can give them a quick mini-lesson on the Hamburger Paragraph. There are tons of free PDFs available online This will show them how to form and flesh out their paragraphs.
Once they get that down you can move on to bigger and better things like writing a thesis.
Pick something easy as an example, "Cats are better than dogs because you don't have to walk them, they clean themselves, and they live longer." They might argue with you on this but hey, that's even better! You could jump right into a lesson on argument-based writing! Let them argue about something they are passionate about.
As they learn to build their skills, you can continue to give them on-the-spot assessments every month or so to look for progress. You can also compare your child's writing samples to one another over time to see growth in specific areas.
Important Areas to Watch For
How much progress happens over time will look different for each child but here are 3 important areas to keep an eye on:
Are they forming paragraphs?
Do they have good spelling and grammar habits?
Does their writing have a beginning and an ending?
Also look out for signs that they are building up their stamina for writing.
If at the start of their writing unit, they can only write for 5 min at a time before getting tired, make sure to increase their writing length by a few minutes each week. They should get to a point where they are able to write for long periods comfortably.
If you’re not comfortable teaching writing on your own, you’ll want to choose a writing curriculum that is at your child’s current skill level.
If you need help getting started with formal writing at home, try one of the resources below:
Writing With Ease by Susan Wise Bauer- a classical writing curriculum with 3 levels that incorporates writing, dictation, and copy work.
Institute for Excellence in Writing - an online writing program that focuses on structure and style by mimicking great writers.
Writers Workshop by Lucy Calkins- this is a traditional school-based curriculum that goes from K-8 and is also my personal favorite. However, I have never used this in a home setting. Only in a cooperative setting. TPT has many of these units complete and ready to teach for very low prices.
All About Spelling - this is a hands-on, open and go, spelling program based on the Orton-Gillingham approach.