Starting To Support Your Child’s Writing Skills

In starting to support your child’s writing skills, it is important to engage your child in the purposeful nature of writing. Writing exists to express ourselves, to share stories, to let others in on our inner world. We want children to understand that, just as the books they read contain stories, they are able to express themselves through stories as well.

In the early stages of writing, we allow children to express themselves through both drawing and letters, to get them motivated to want to express themselves and to create. Start by sitting with your child, with paper and crayons/pencils on hand. Make sure there are writing tools that are comfortable for their little hands. Consider getting a pencil grip, such as The Pencil Grip, Universal Ergonomic Writing Aid or The Pencil Grip Crossover Grip Ergonomic Writing Aid. If your child is uncomfortable, they will be less likely to want to participate.

Next, discuss with your child different topics you might like to write about. You are going to demonstrate how someone comes up with an idea and then decides to express that idea through writing/drawing. Think out loud with your child about your topic, and then sketch it from the image in your mind. Maybe you plan to write about the family dog; draw a simple sketch of a dog. Do not make this drawing into a big project–the more intricate your drawing, the less accessible this process appears to your child.

Next, start to write the topic of your idea above the drawing. As you write, you will demonstrate the opposite process of decoding and blending. When you decode and blend in order to read, you identify each letter and then its letter sound, and blend those letter sounds in order to read the word. To do this when writing, say the sound of the first letter of the word, and then the name of the letter itself. So if you are writing the word dog, you would say, “I wonder what I hear at the beginning of the word dog. I hear a duh sound. I wonder what letter makes the duh sound? It’s a d. So I will write the letter d.” Go letter by letter. “Next I hear an aw sound. What letter makes the aw sound? That would be o, so I will write the letter o. What sound do I hear at the end? I hear a guh sound. What letter makes the guh sound? That would be g, so I will write the letter g.”

This is an important procedure for you to model for your child. The more you do this as you write, the more your child will understand the process. Unfortunately, some words are not decodable, which means they cannot be sounded out. If you are writing words that are not decodable, such as the, with, etc., don’t do this process on those words; model this process only on CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words.

It is important to let your child spell in however way they see fit in these early stages. There will be time for them to master the correct spelling, but the very beginning of their writing development is not that time. If your child asks you the correct way to spell something, do so, but model how you know that spelling by using the process described above to sound out the word and write down each letter sound you hear.

After you have come up with your own topic, drawn a quick sketch, and then written the word of your topic above it, explain that your child will now do the same. Talk with your child about what they’d like to write about, and then have them draw a picture and label that picture. Say the word out loud, letting them hear all the sounds in that word. Really stretch it out. So if they’re writing about your cat, say the word cat very slowly, and ask them what sounds they hear in that word. For whatever sound(s) they hear, ask them what letter(s) make that sound. Maybe their label will just be the first letter of the word. That’s fine for now. You want to allow them to get comfortable with the idea of writing to express themselves.

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