The basis of good writing is good talk. When you visit places, encourage your child to talk about what has been seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched. Encourage children to share their experiences in as much detail as possible!
ips for helping your child to enjoy Writing
- Let your child write their own Christmas cards, thank you letters, cards or e-mails to
friends or relatives, invitations to a party, or a list of things they need to take on holiday. - Play word-building games like Boggle or Scrabble. Games like ‘Guess Who’ can also
develop their descriptive vocabulary. - Create silly sentences or tongue twisters using alliteration (a group of words that all begin with the same sound) Eg. Silly Sarah slipped on Sam’s salmon sandwiches
Monty Mouse marched merrily to the magic mountain. - Different types and colours of paper, different pens and pencils, envelopes, stampers and various other stationary can all be motivating when your children is writing.
- Encourage your child to rehearse their sentence out loud before they write it down.
- Always encourage children to punctuate their sentences with a full-stop and capital letter.
- Handwriting does not have to be boring! Let children practise drawing letters in sand, water or paint, or use white boards or blackboards. Pattern books can be fun to do and allow children to practise mark-making. Children can also make letters using playdough, pastry or shaving foam.
- Let children write a small part of your shopping list. Let them be responsible for carrying their list and finding those items when you go to the supermarket.
- Make up fun ways to remember how to spell a word eg. Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants = because.
- After making a cake or doing a craft activity, challenge children to write the recipe or the instructions for someone else to use.
- Write an information page or booklet about something they find interesting eg. spiders, Dr Who, dinosaurs, cats, etc. Draw a picture and label it.