As parents, we can't expect perfection from ourselves. However, having raised two children, it's much easier now to look back and see where I made mistakes. I am sure that's true of most parents. When it comes to writing, we have so many opportunities to mislead our kids without even trying. Having worked with many parents and their children to overcome rough writing beginnings, I've found that certain mistakes are very common.
MISTAKE #1
Start writing with our children too early. I'm a big fan of developmental learning. For example, my daughter was reading at 4 years old and my son didn't read until the end of first grade. I read extensively to and with both of them, but developmentally they were just moving at different rates when it came to academics. Many parents believe once a child is reading, writing follows quickly behind. That's not true for many children. Reading isn't near as abstract as writing for most children. Unless a child expresses a serious interest in learning to write, the best time to begin serious writing education (parts of speech, sentence structure, paragraph design, etc.) is 3rd grade.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
If you have a young child, use the books you're reading as examples to emphasize specific writing concepts. For example, point out how authors always end statements with periods and questions with question marks. Talking through writing concepts from a young age utilizing books will make writing more relevant to your child. Copy work also provides an excellent starting point for young writers. Select a passage (a few sentences to a full paragraph) from books you're reading together and have your child copy it. Then point out the various writing skills used in the passage (capitalization, punctuation, parts of speech, etc.). Third grade offers an ideal time to begin working with parts speech, strong sentences and even paragraph development.
MISTAKE #2
We expect grammar workbooks to produce strong writers. Often parents spend tremendous time on grammar, spelling and vocabulary workbooks and then wonder their children don't translate those lessons into effective writing. Many children take spelling tests, score a 100% and then misspell those same words in a written assignment. Relevancy is essential for proper learning. If a student doesn't understand why grammar connects to writing, then he won't apply anything he's learned from those grammar workbooks. Teaching skills in isolation rarely produces a strong writer. Few children naturally make the transition from workbook to independent writing, although we often expect them to do so.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION
It's important to provide opportunities for students to use the skills that they're taught in the workbooks. Personally, I prefer skills lists. You can begin by using an editing checklist, such as the one on Helpful Tools page of this blog, to insure that you've taught your student the necessary skills. I never used a workbook with my children. I simply went through the list of writing skills, demonstrating them and then having my children practice them. I might teach a lesson on nouns, but rather than have my children fill out a worksheet, I worked with them to find the nouns in their own writing or in books we were reading at the time. That makes sense to them. So, if you're relying on workbooks to expose your child to grammar, spelling or vocabulary skills, make sure you take the next step to demonstrate how they should apply those skills to actual written work.
MISTAKE #3
We neglect teaching writing because of our own fears. I meet parents regularly who find writing fearful and unfortunately in most cases, they transfer their fears to their children, although it's not usually purposeful. This fear can seriously stilt a child's overall education since writing is such an essential skill. POSSIBLE SOLUTION
If you find yourself in this position, you really only have two options: overcome your fears or hire someone to teach your child to write. I have tutored and guided parents who longed to teach their children to write but didn't want to use an outside teacher. I've had parents sit in on my classes with their children so we made the process a combined effort. Often, parents prefer to just put their children in my classes. The funny part is many parents overcome this fear even as their children learn from me because the child's growing confidence affects the parent's as they work together on homework and class assignments. Whatever you do, don't ignore writing with your child because putting it off after 3rd grade only makes it more challenging for your child later.
MISTAKE #4
We give difficult assignments without prior instruction. Homeschool parents love to assign writing assignments. I am amazed at parents who tell me that they asked their 4th grader to write a story without ever examining the components of a story or explaining the steps for writing a story. We want our children to succeed but sometimes we set them up to fail. Scripture speaks to us as parents about frustrating our children and requiring assignments without instruction will do just that! It's better for a child to write a single well developed sentence than a poorly developed paragraph. With writing, quality always supersedes quantity.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION
Before you give an assignment, examine which skills your student will need in order to complete it successfully. If necessary, break the assignment into steps to insure that you've covered all necessary skills. For example, just coming up with a topic can cause great consternation for an inexperienced writer. Walking your student through possible topic ideas can ease that stress. Writing is a process whether it's informational (topic selection, researching and note taking, creating a thesis statement, outlining, writing drafts, editing, re-writing drafts)or fictional (topic selection, brainstorming, outlining, story develop, writing, editing, re-writing). If you skip steps in the process, the job becomes much more challenging. Rather than making a single writing assignment, consider breaking up the job up into multiple assignments.
MISTAKE #5
We don't properly evaluate our children's writing. Often because parents feel inadequate to evaluate their children's writing, they just don't do it. They assign writing work but never really grade it. I have met many moms who have stories, essays and more stashed away in a folder because they just don't feel confident grading their children's written work. Other parents don't grade writing because of the time and energy it takes. As a writing teacher who works with many students on varying levels of ability at the same time, I know that grading written work requires patience and endurance.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION
A couple of options exist for dealing with this problem: if you're not willing to take the time to grade your child's work, you shouldn't assign it or give your child the assignment, but hire someone else to evaluate it. I do offer hourly evaluation services, reasonably priced, for all levels of student writing. I began to offer these services when more and more moms came to me guilt-ridden over having not evaluated their children's written work.
There are plenty of other issues related to teaching our children writing, but overcoming these five basic mistakes provides a firm foundation for success. Are there issues that you have concerning teaching your children to write? Leave a comment on this blog post or email me, and I'll be happy to provide any help that I can to make your teaching life easier!
May God bless you as you strive to raise writers!
