Getting Children To Be Able To Expand On Their Ideas

As we discussed previously, we want to emphasize that writing can be a way to express oneself and tell stories. Getting children to be able to expand on their ideas and develop them more fully over time is the main goal. Let’s go back to the previous exercise of having your child come up with a topic, draw a picture, and then label it. Now have your child add to that drawing, and then try to write a couple more words that describe the topic. If your child’s topic was your cat, have your child think about what he likes about the cat, such as that it’s soft or that it likes to play with a ball. These words may be just one or two letters long, and that’s fine.

Some children love the idea of telling stories and will want to “write” out an entire adventure, such as a recent trip or playdate with a friend. For these children, supply as much paper as you can and have them draw and then label each event as they go. However, for many children, the idea of writing a story appears daunting, and that’s why just labeling at first, and then slowly adding to it, as described above, can open them up to the process. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to model how someone would write a longer story.

In order to model how you would write out a story, start to draw pictures of the events as they unfolded and then label those as you go, sounding out as many as the CVC words as you can. As you continue this process, it’s fine to include words that are more difficult and that are not decodable. If you took a family trip to the beach, and you want to label part of your picture, “This is where we all jumped in the waves,” write the word this without sounding it out, then sound out is, then write out the word where, then sound out we, etc. Just sound out the words that are decodable, otherwise your child will lose track of what you are doing. Your child has seen adults writing hundreds of times, so it’s fine for you to just sound out the words that are decodable and write out the rest as normal. You are modeling that people write for a purpose, and you are unlocking the tools in your child to be able to do the same.

As you read books to your child, start to point out more and more that the authors wrote the words on that page in order to tell their story. You want your child to understand that the words they see on the pages of books are there for a purpose, and that they themselves can also write words to tell stories. Maybe some of these concepts seem obvious to adults, but children need to be instructed to build these connections in order to grasp the purpose of what they are doing. If they think they are just writing words on a page to please you, that will cause anxiety and frustration. They need to understand the greater purpose.

There are many ways to help your child further grasp the value of writing. Just like you had them label their pictures on the page, you can have them “label the house.” For this activity, take post-it notes and ask your child to start labeling anything they can see in the room. Point to objects and stretch out the words as you say them, so your child can hear all the sounds in the word. Again, your child might only write the initial letter, or an initial letter and medial consonant, etc. This is fine. Don’t correct them and ask them to write only the accurate spelling. The game quickly becomes a chore that way. The next time someone new comes into the room, ask your child to show that person all of the things they labeled, so your child can practice reading back the words they just wrote. It may be hard for your child to read their own writing at first, but because the label is next to the object, they will have that context to help them. This also emphasizes the relationship between reading and writing, building that connection for your child.