Working With Your Child On Beginning Writing Strategies

In the following series of blog posts, I will demonstrate a series of activities to get your child started on the writing process. The following curriculum is adapted from Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum. In teaching a class of kindergartners, half of whom had special needs in some capacity, I adapted the curriculum to meet each student’s individual needs.

If you’re working with your child on beginning writing strategies, the most important thing to remember is that every child learns at a different rate. Your child may quickly pick up many letter-sound relationships and be able to write “words” (such as spelling cake as cc or bunny as bn). Or, your child may struggle with the concept for quite a while, preferring to draw pictures and use few letters. It is important not to pressure your child to write if you can tell that the idea is making them anxious. Reading and writing go hand-in-hand, but strength in one skill does not necessarily correlate to strength in the other right away.

The most important thing in supporting your child’s writing growth is to make writing fun and purposeful. Children need to see that writing is a part of their everyday lives. As I outline the curriculum below, I will include additional activities that you can do with your children to incorporate writing into daily life.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *