How to Help Your Child Learn Logical Writing Skills

This article will assist parents in the organization and composition of an essay or report for their elementary aged children. It gives the reader a process to apply to any type of writing assignment your child is beginning to receive.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Notebook paper
• pencils
• work space

1. Gather Instructions & Create Reasonable Timelines:
   Ask your child for all guidelines, assignment sheets or directions given out in class. If you are not satisfied with what was sent home and want more details, please ask the teacher to provide answers to your questions. Sit down with your child and look over all of the requirements and the due date TOGETHER. Your child must accept this assignment as his own. Create deadlines for the essay in the following order:
   Research & Brainstorming (usually 1-2 afternoons)
   Outline & Rough Draft (1-3 afternoons)
   Final Draft (1 afternoon)
   Extra Materials (1-2 afternoons)
   Adjust your deadlines according to the abilities displayed by your child; you will know how much time he or she needs. One half to one hour after-school sessions are sufficient.

2. Research & Brainstorm:
   Whether the essay is a research report or based on a prompt, spend time brainstorming with your child about the topic and what they would like to say about their topic. Break their thoughts into sections and list the sections on a sheet of paper. If your essay needs resources, take your child to the library (school or public) and help them choose 3-6 age appropriate books on their topic. If the essay is creative writing based on a prompt, have your child talk to you about it at length.

3. Outline & Rough Draft:
   Using an ample work space, have your child spread out 4-6 sheets of wide-ruled notebook paper in a row. Title each sheet as follows:
   Introduction, Paragraph 1, Paragraph 2, Paragraph 3, Paragraph 4 (if needed), Conclusion. Using the ideas you discussed in the brainstorming session, list them on each sheet in a logical sequence. For instance:
   Introduction sheet: talk about what or who the paper is about and what you will discuss in your essay. You are introducing your topic to your reader.
   Paragraph 1: e.g.: if you are writing a paper about Abraham Lincoln, you would include background, early years in this paragraph.
   Paragraph 2: Lincoln's youth, political involvement, education, etc.
   Paragraph 3: Lincoln's contributions to society, his achievements
   Paragraph 4: Lincoln's later years, assasination, his legacy
   Conclusion: Bring everything together and restate the 2-3 most important things your child learned or feels about the topic to conclude the essay.
   Take each sheet of paper and place them in their proper order.

4. Rough Draft & Final Draft:
   Re-copy each of the individual papers onto a single page or two (however long your individual sheets require). Encourage your child to be neat, and use the grammatical rules he has learned so far. This becomes the rough draft. Ask the teacher if she checks the rough draft for edits or if not, you should check it and make corrections. Make any necessary changes and if necessary, re-copy to get it perfect. This is the final draft that should be ready for submission.

5. Extra Materials:
   This is where you help you child create a cover page, bibliography or any artwork required by the teacher for this essay. Show your child how to follow directions step by step and encourage creativity. Use construction paper, colored pencils, markers, stencils, etc. Staple or bind the paper togeter and CELEBRATE with your child!

Tips & Warnings

• Don't work with your child any longer than your child's capacity to focus, it will be counterproductive and strain your relationship for future projects.
• Resist the temptation to do the work for your child, even if it isn't stellar
• Consistently remind your child what a great job he is doing and how proud you are of him.