How to Help a Young Child Begin to Write

Series Summary

Good writing is an important skill that can be used in a variety of media. Whether it's writing a meeting agenda, a toast or a magazine article, the ability to effectively communicate to a large audience stems from knowledge and execution of proper writing techniques. With such knowledge comes an understanding of the distinct differences in writing styles between creative writing, journalism, technical writing and informal writing. In this free video series on writing, writing instructor Laura Minnigerode explains several tips and techniques for different styles of writing. Minnigerode begins by discussing how to help a young child begin to write. She then explains how to write cinquain, a quatrain, a case study, a newspaper article, a radio ad, a memoir and even a no trespassing letter. Minnigerode also discusses several tips on how to get books published and teach children to spell and read. Watch these free videos and learn more about writing today.

Video Transcript

"Hi. I'm Laura from youngwritersworkshops.com and I'm going to talk about how to help a young child begin to write. The most important way to encourage your child to write and support them in this process is to recognize that there are times that writing has meaning. One of the ways that you can encourage that is any writing that they do, when they tell you the story of what it means is to respond as though that's exactly what it says to you. One of my mentors tells a story about how when a child is beginning to speak and they ask for a banana and they might say ba-ba. You don't stop and say no you don't want a ba you want a banana and hand them the banana. So think about that analogy to writing. When your child writes something respond to it in the way that is intended by them. One easy way to help them, if they create a story that looks like a string of letters to you, is to respond to it and then also talk a little bit about how they might put dashes in between the letters to create some separation if they have a beginning letter of each word. Just the idea of putting a dash or a line between each one helps them to begin to know that each of those things represents a separate word, and then over time there might be a space in between the letters. Little projects where children write a name tag or a label for an object that they love. Writing down, helping you to write the grocery list. When you are making a list you talk about how you are writing down the things that you need from the store. Those are really small little steps that are things that you can do every day to help your child begin to write."