Writing is an important form of communication and essential for success in education and adult life. But sometimes, schooling isn’t enough and children need extra help to develop strong writing skills.
Fortunately, there are a number of things you can do as a parent to help outside the classroom. To get you started, we have compiled a list of 6 ideas to improve your child’s writing skills.
To Improve Your Child’s Writing Skills:
Encourage regular reading
Play games (make it fun!)
Encourage journaling
Connect their interests
Encourage letter writing
Hire an experienced tutor
1. Encourage Regular Reading
One of the best ways to improve your child’s writing skills is to expose them to different kinds of books and authors with varied writing styles. The more a child reads, the more they will be exposed to different words and ideas. Once a word is part of their receptive vocabulary, it is a lot easier for it to make the transition into productive use.
Great writers are usually avid readers and there is a reason for this.
2. Play Games (Make It Fun!)
It will be harder for your child to sit down and practice writing if it feels like a chore. To avoid this, why not make it fun by playing games and activities that encourage writing.
If you need some inspiration, here is a list of games and activities that will encourage your child to willingly write more and have fun whilst doing so.
Remember the more games children play around writing, the more they will enjoy it.
3. Encourage Journaling
Regular journaling is a fantastic way for your child to express themselves while also working on their writing skills. By journaling daily, even if it's just a few lines, will naturally instil a good writing habit and teach them how to write about daily events in an interesting, creative manner.
Children’s journals tend to come preloaded with prompts and ideas, which will help them get started.
4. Connect Their Interests
There will always be something that your child is interested in, whether that be a book series, a film, or even a song. Whatever it may be, you can connect it to writing, for example having them write a new short story to the book or write a new verse to the song.
By connecting what they are passionate about with writing, you are automatically giving them a prompt that they will want to work on.
5. Encourage Letter Writing
Getting your child to write letters the old-fashioned way is a great way to practice their writing skills.
Encouraging your child to write letters from an early age will improve their communication, social and handwriting skills, and teach them what they need to know about writing and structuring letters.
You may encourage them to write letters to family members or friends.
6. Hire An Experienced Tutor
Sometimes students need additional help to develop their writing skills and hiring a professional English tutor can be the perfect solution.
In the classroom, your child’s teacher might not always have the time to work one-on-one with them as their attention is spread across 30 children. At home, you may well excel at teaching maths and other more straightforward subjects, but more often than not parents can lack confidence critiquing their children’s writing.
With one to one tutoring, a tutor will tailor the lessons/create the writing tasks specifically for your child - something that you’ll less likely experience in a classroom setting.
How We Can Help...
If your child needs extra help improving his or her writing skills, GCSE Masterclass can help.
At GCSE Masterclass, we use only the very best teachers. All our staff are fully qualified, experienced teachers who have a proven track record of high quality teaching and excellent results within their GCSE classes.
Contact us to find out more about how we can quickly improve your child’s confidence, grades and future.