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The best way to improve writing skills, no matter the writer's age, is through regular practice. Your child might be getting a lot of good practice at school. However, if your child's school provides limited writing practice or if you're homeschooling your child, you may want to include additional formal writing lessons at home. Even having your child write very straightforward things (such as what they did at school that day or what kinds of snacks they want to eat) can be excellent writing practice. It doesn't always have to be creative writing practice to be effective. Recognize, however, that sometimes children will be reluctant to write. Let them take some time away from writing if they need to (unless they have to complete a school assignment). A daily journal can be a terrific way for a young writer to expand their vocabulary, develop a unique writing style, and learn how to express complicated thoughts in words. This builds essential skills and gives children an important outlet for sharing their thoughts and feelings. Sometimes the best writing practice is freewriting when your child simply writes whatever comes into their mind. However, if your child is a bit older and wants to write a longer or more ambitious story, encourage your child to make a writing plan first. Make sure your child has a sense of what they will write about, what the point of their story is, and (if relevant) what the assignment entails. Do they have a plan for the beginning, middle, and end of the story? Perfectionism can be harmful to your child's creativity and self-confidence. Rather than fixing your child's errors and mistakes, have your child reread their own writing and ask them what they think about it. Let them locate their own errors and encourage them to fix things themselves. Never take over and rewrite their story yourself. For example, you could underline the words they have misspelled without giving them the correct spelling. Ask them to look up the correct spelling in the dictionary. Be sure that you provide your child with positive feedback as well as gentle suggestions for improvements. One of the most important skills your child will learn is how to revise first drafts into final drafts. Encourage your child to make changes to their story and to work hard at improving it. For example, you can ask them to use sticky notes to build off of the first draft of a story in order to add more details, clarify their language, and vary their sentence structures. Let your child know that practice and perseverance are essential to the writing process.
Encourage daily writing. Encourage your child to keep a journal. Encourage your child to plan before writing difficult things. Resist the urge to do the writing yourself. Provide fun opportunities for revision.