Teach the Joy of Writing
How I teach my children from letters to research papers.
Let me take you through the journey my family has had with writing. Ever since I was a little girl, I loved making up stories or penning my thoughts or concerns in a diary. I never had great handwriting but I always enjoyed the feeling of a pen or pencil against a page.
When my oldest son was ready to begin writing, I was so eager for him to experience the thrills of writing. I ran out and purchased several of the write and erase books for preschoolers so my son could feel the marker in his hand while tracing his letters. I handed my son the marker, put it in his hand correctly only to have him immediately grip it like a caveman. I gently showed him the right way again but could barely get his hand in the right position around the marker. After a big struggle, I gave up, and looked up a YouTube video on how to teach my kid how to hold a writing utensil correctly. Never be afraid to let a video teach your children the simplest tasks. It can make life so much easier.
We got through step one: holding the writing utensil correctly. On to step two, writing letters. Yeah, not so much. That was a big No Go as well.
I took a deep breath, collected my angries and put them in a pocket to be dealt with later, and revised my plan. I realized I cannot assume that a kid can do anything without being taught. I came up with a rough plan and it worked well. I continued this basic plan with my others and it's still going strong. My basic rule is for everyone to do some sort of writing every day. Beyond that, I follow the progression below, going on to the next step as I see fit for each child, giving each the time they need to master each skill.
Teach your child how to hold the pencil. The pinch and flip method seems to be a solid way to go. Not all of my kids struggled with holding a pencil.
Make or download worksheets with simple zig zag or curly lines for your child to trace. There are so many activity sheets on Pinterest or Teacher pay Teacher that you can use. More times than not, I just grabbed a sheet of construction paper and made four or five different types of lines going across the page for my little one to trace.
Practice the all important up and to the left motion. I also had my kids practice drawing big circles on their papers by going up and to the left over and over again. Adding different colors on top of other colors can make this simple activity fun. The only goal is to go up and to the left because so many lowercase letters use this motion and until “up and to the left” is second nature, it can also be a big tripping spot for young writers. Once they master the big circles, have them progressively make smaller circles.
Tracing sheets. After these skills are well practiced, we bring out the tracing sheets. Starting with letters, I take my time watching them write each letter and correcting the way they form the letter if need be. Writing the letters the right way can be frustrating for a little who are wanting to hurry up and go play outside.
Make a snack for them while they write or dangle a reward in front of them when they are done.
If they hit their breaking point five minutes into the writing, that's okay. Plan to pick up where they left off tomorrow. It really can take a lot out of them.
When letters are mastered, I find tracing sheets for sight words. Search for print tracing sheets on Pinterest or homeschool blogs. There are a plethora out there for free.
Tracing handwritten sentences. There are also plenty of tracing sheets with sentences for your child to continue practicing their handwriting. But with young writers, I often look up inspirational quotes from people like C.S. Lewis or Martin Luther King to keep the content interesting and new. I write the quote in large letters on a piece of notebook paper, taking up three lines instead of using just one, with a highlighter. I have my child trace inside of the highlighter letters. This makes it easy to see their writing while still giving them a guide.
Now on to copywork. Once tracing is going well, I test the waters to see if they can just look at the quote I write in their notebooks, and copy the same sentence. Sometimes, this is like pulling teeth. If so, I go back to the tracing until my child is ready to copy.
Don’t forget cursive! We have started giving my older children around the age of 7 and 8, cursive tracing sheets. I have found that my more artistic child loves writing in cursive and took to it quite quickly.
With the physical act of writing progressing, I turn my attention to content. I tried a few times to teach my older son, who is now nine years old, how to format a paper or write a summary of a book. It was tough and didn’t seem to be going well. Then in our CC Essentials program, we were introduced to the most fabulous writing program. The Institute for Excellence in Writing is a truly phenomenal program that walks you through, as the teacher, on how to teach your children how to write beautifully with practical steps and practices. It takes baby steps of progression from retelling a text to writing a full blown research paper with multiple sources. We are going through this for the first of three times with my oldest and we are learning so much. But there are also products for younger writers if you are looking for a writing curriculum right out of the gate! Mr. Pudewa has so many little gems of advice with writing. My favorite example is to use a pen instead of a pencil when writing. The erasing, sharpening or clicking of a pencil can be very distracting for a student and a big time waster. If a mistake is made with a pen, draw a line through the word and move on. This has been a huge thing for us!
Of course, reading is a wonderful way to spark the joy of writing as well. I love loading up on a huge haul of books from the library. Some books we read aloud as a family, but many are just for them to breeze through on their own. Filling their minds full of awesome adventures, relatable sibling dynamics, or true historical stories can grow their vocabulary as well as their imaginations, building their desire to tell their own stories.