Entries Tagged 'Elementary' ↓

Sultry spring breezes drifted through the open windows, swaying the blinds, teasing our noses with the perfume of honeysuckle and wild roses. It was hard to maintain concentration on American constitutional history. Competing for attention, the open textbooks on our desks lost to the wide-open world outside.

“Hey, Mrs. Wagner! Can we go outdoors and play the “Looks Like” game?” one student pleaded. He was joined by a chorus of “Please?”

“Sounds good to me!” I don’t know of any human being immune to the southern springtime scent of honeysuckle and wild roses.

Playing the “Looks Like” Game

The “Looks Like” game was a favorite metaphor exercise. Kids played the game everywhere: on the bus, in the classroom, and always outdoors. A quick method of jumping into creative images, it freed imaginations even within my most self-proclaimed “unimaginative’ kids.

We grabbed notebooks and pens, scattering into small groups.

Clouds drifted, veiling the sun, then rolled on again. “The sun looks like a puppy wrestling with the laundry,” a child wrote.

Leaves rustled against an azure sky. Another student jotted, “The trees look like feather dusters, cleaning the clouds.”

Dogwood petals and honey locust blossoms scattered across the fields. “The blossoms look like sprinkled soap powder,” penned a young lady.

Back inside our classroom, the kids’ metaphors birthed the images of a new group poem:

Spring Cleaning

The sun hides in a basket of clouds,
                 a puppy playing in the laundry.
Trees dust the sky,
                sprinkling soap powder blossoms
                over the earth’s green carpet.

As the kids demonstrated that day, we naturally see things metaphorically. We constantly compare the way one thing looks to another. Comparison is custom-built into our language. Writing a poem can be as simple as bringing images together through metaphor and simile.

Today with your children, grab pen and paper and play the “Looks Like” game.

What do you see around you? Focus on details and write down:

• I see __________
• It looks like __________
• I see __________
• It looks like __________

Keep going!

What shared poem will you and your kids write together today to mark a wonderful day of living? Post your poems here in our comment section!

You might also enjoy:

• Writing a poem of comparison
• Spring poetry ideas

. . . . .

Janet Wagner is a contributor to In Our Write Minds. For over two decades, Janet was an elementary and middle school teacher in two Christian academies, a public district school, and a public charter school. She also had the honor of helping to homeschool her two nieces. Janet and her husband Dean live on the family farm in the Piedmont region of north central North Carolina. Currently, she enjoys a flexible life of homemaking, volunteering, reading, writing, tutoring students and training dogs, and learning how to build websites. You can view her web work-in-progress at www.creative-writing-ideas-and-activities.com.

Humphrey the Cat belongs to author Nancy I. Sanders. he has his own writing blog, Writing According to Humphrey, where he shares helpful writing tips. From time to time, I’ll feature some of his articles here (with permission from Nancy, of course). Today we get to learn about “Word Walls According to Humphrey.”

Short of ideas for a story you’re writing? Does your brain feel like a sieve with all the ideas drained out?

Here’s a tip to help you brainstorm and get those creative juices flowing:

Make a Portable Word Wall

A Word Wall is used to help elementary children get ideas and learn words that are related to the main theme. It’s also known as a Word Bank. For instance, if children are learning about farm animals, the teacher posts a picture of a barn on a bulletin board. Then, she posts words underneath the picture such as cow, sheep, pig, hen, and duck. When children are writing and get stuck for ideas, they look at the word wall and choose words from the list that they want in their story.

I like to make Word Walls, too! I figure, why let the kids have all the fun? We kitties like to have fun, too!

You can make a portable Word Wall that’s as fun as it is practical. Get a file folder. On the front, decorate it with a picture of the theme of your story or book. For instance, I made a portable Word Wall when I wrote a story where I was the star. (I actually made my published debut in Clubhouse Jr.!)

Then, open up the file folder. On the inside write any word or phrase that comes to mind about the theme of your story or book. For example, my Word Wall about me includes the following words and phrases: purrfect, pawsitively, paws/pause, nine lives, cat-a-tonic, cat-alogue, tuna fish, etc.

Keep adding to your Word Wall when you think of more words and phrases. Then, next time you sit down and get stuck writing, pull out that Word Wall and see how it helps jump-start your creativity!

Here you can see me with a set of color-coded word walls I made. One color has nouns like tuna and fish. Another color has adjectives like tuna fish. Did I mention that tuna fish is my favorite word to write about?

 . . . . .

WriteShop Primary by Nancy I. Sanders is filled with games, crafts, and tools such as Portable Word Banks—fun activities that help you introduce important skills to your littlest writers.

“Word Walls According to Humphrey” ©2011 Nancy I. Sanders. Used by permission.

A quick peek at the “Editing & Revising” category in the sidebar will show you that I talk about editing quite a bit here. It’s a big deal for so many homeschoolers—and is often the very thing that puts a damper on an otherwise decent day or week of writing.

I’m always on the hunt for a fresh idea to share that will make the editing process even a teensy bit easier for you and your kiddos. Editing can leave an unpleasant taste in many a mouth, so today. let’s look at ways to make the process more positive.

Start Them Young

I love to see parents begin to teach self-editing skills during the elementary years—before anxiety, fear, and self-deprecation begin to overtake their children. While they’re still young, introducing them to simple ideas can actually make self-editing fun!

• For example, you can absolutely revolutionize self-editing with one little trick: Make a photocopy of your child’s original writing project and let her self-edit the copy. This allows her to preserve the original, which many children are quite reluctant to mark up.
• Encourage children to identify a difficult word they spelled correctly or a sentence that has no errors. They love hunting for things they did well, rather than only focusing on mistakes.
• Another suggestion: Provide them with their own set of supplies such as highlighter markers, colored pencils, and tiny stickers. Armed with their personal editing tools, children can sit down with a real sense of purpose to find those errors and highlight the things they did well. Editing can become a joy instead of a dreaded chore. 

“My son feels very professional having a tool kit for this specific job.”  -Karen, WA 

A Second Pair of Eyes

But don’t stop at self-editing. Every paper benefits from another look, so once your child is finished self-editing his work, take time to edit it yourself.

• Keep suggestions to a minimum.
• Don’t try to find every error,
• At this age, there’s no need to ravage your child’s paper with a red pen. When you do spot something that needs attention, try not to cross out or erase. Instead, simply print the correct word or punctuation mark directly above the old one.

When finished, give your child the opportunity to rewrite his composition on fresh paper, should he so choose.

Positive, Encouraging Feedback

It’s not always easy to edit a child’s writing attempts. We’re naturally inclined to point out all the mistakes, roll our eyes, sigh deeply in exasperation, or even become angry. Clearly, that’s not the best approach when dealing with a tender-hearted nine-year-old.

So before a negative word rolls off your tongue, affirm your developing writer by searching for things you can praise.

Next time you look over your child’s paper, why not try making a few of these positive and encouraging comments?

• You’re off to a great start!
• I love your ideas.
• You are so creative.
• What a descriptive story!
• You shared some interesting facts.
• Wow! You remembered all your capitalization rules.
• Thank you for trying so hard.
• I can see that you’ve put a lot of thought into your story.
• Great word choices! My favorites are “powdery” and “luffy.”
• I like your title. It gives me a good clue about your story.
• This is my favorite sentence.
• Fantastic! Look how your punctuation has improved.
• You are becoming a great writer.

More Editing Ideas

• Editing and Evaluating Writing: K-3rd Grade
• Editing and Evaluating Writing: 4th-6th Grade
• The Trick to Finding the Balance
• Put Some Fun into Editing (or A Cat’s Guide to Editing)

My friend Maxine Randall of Speakable Gifts has announced a writing contest for children in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. 

Children are asked to write a story based on the poem “Little Words of Kindness“ and submit their story for judging by March 31, 2011. You can find the contest rules and prizes here. WriteShop has donated one of the first-place prizes: a StoryBuilder of the winner’s choice!

gen · re (ZHON-ruh), n. a classification of literature or writing by subject or theme in which members of a genre share common characteristics.

It’s never too soon to introduce your children to the concept of genre. Even as their writing skills are just beginning to bloom during their early school years, you can help them identify different types of literature through the books they’re reading.

I’ve always been a reader. Even as a child, I remember enjoying books from many different genres. I adored nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and poems. Among my earliest memories are books about nature and science and stories of children from around the world. In third grade, I must have checked out every children’s biography in our school library. And in fourth grade, you could be sure to find my friend Adele and me—at one house or the other—propped up on pillows with our noses buried deep in a Nancy Drew mystery.

Your Child Knows Genres

There are two main types of genre: Literary genre is meant to entertain and nonliterary genre is meant to inform. Your child might not yet recognize the word itself, but she’s more than likely already familiar with many genres, including:

• Nursery Rhymes
• Poetry
• Personal narrative
• Historical fiction
• Adventure
• Mystery
• Classics
• Humor
• Fairy tale
• Folktale
• Biography
• Nonfiction
• Informational
• Science Fiction
• Fantasy

There is often overlap between genres. A biography, for example, is also nonfiction and informational. And depending on the subject, it can even blur into adventure or humor. 

Help your children recognize and explore various genres and practice related writing skills. As they discover each genre’s unique qualities, students can better appreciate and understand what they read—and apply that knowledge to their writing.

7 Ways to Introduce Genre

1. Brainstorm books or stories that fit a genre.
2. Visit the library and discover how books are categorized.
3. Study a particular genre each month. Read books, discuss their common characteristics, and assign one or two related writing projects.
4. Send your child on a scavenger hunt through your home or library bookshelves and have her make lists. She can record the different genres she finds, or she can write down book titles within a certain genre, such as historical fiction or mysteries.
5. Play “genre bingo.” Give your child a blank bingo grid and have her fill in the squares with different genres. As she reads different books that fit each genre, she can put a sticker on that square. When she gets five in a row, give her a small prize. And when she gets blackout, buy her a new book in her favorite genre!
6. Challenge your child to read different genres from your library. You might put a limit of 3 books per genre to encourage her to read outside of her comfort zone.
7. Include some math fun! Make a bar graph to mark and measure the number of books your family reads in each genre.

Copyright 2011 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved. 

This is a tale of two moms.

Cheryl’s son has motivational issues, so she likes to help him approach a concept in many different ways. “If one activity doesn’t cement the idea, another will,” she says. She loves when a curriculum appeals to different learning styles by offering activities that appeal to her hands-on, kinesthetic child.

Jennifer looks for books and materials that just teach writing. She doesn’t want pre-writing activities, games, craft projects, or other “bells and whistles.” To Jennifer, these things are busy work. “I just want to teach my kids how to write,” she says. “I’ll play games another time.”

What Is Busy Work?

bu · sy work n. useless tasks or assignments that appear productive, but merely occupy students.

I remember busy work—inane worksheets my teachers passed out as a dubious reward for those of us who followed directions and finished our in-class assignments on time.

We didn’t get to read a book or play a quiet game in the back of the room. No, our promptness and diligence were punished, in essence, with silly coloring pages and fill-in-the-blank worksheets that kept us quiet while everyone else slogged along.

Sadly, Jennifer lumps word games and craft-based publishing ideas with busy work. She thinks they’re unnecessary and time-consuming.

But my own experience with real busy work reminds me that pushing a pencil around a worksheet is worlds apart from using educational games and other creative activities to enhance learning.

Enhanced Learning

Are you, like Jennifer, tempted to think of such activities as busy work? If so, consider their importance in light of the way most young children learn.

Pre-writing Activities

Manipulatives and pre-writing activities are vital, engaging learning aids, unlike those tedious workbooks meant to keep children out of your hair for an hour.

Educational methods such as spelling or vocabulary games help a child’s brain remember new concepts. They teach him about important story elements and help him discover fresh new ways to practice writing skills. Such activities especially benefit young—and usually kinesthetic—learners.

Learning games can teach a child skills such as:

• Adding description
• Developing voice
• Planning a mystery
• Adding details to a story
• Expanding writing vocabulary
• Thinking about story elements such as setting and character
• Summarizing a book

Crafty Publishing Projects

One of the most encouraging and rewarding experiences for any author is to see his work published. Most children love publishing their stories through a fun, imaginative activity.

Not only does this enhance the writing experience, but they end up with a really creative final draft they’re eager to share with others.

Your child can publish his writing project in many ways. For example, he can:

• Create a Top Secret File for his mystery story.
• Make a travel poster or paper “suitcase” for his adventure story.
• Present his report on a three-panel display board.
• Make a decorative invitation or thank-you letter.
• Design a lift-the-flap book or trivia game for an informative report.

The Craft Caveat

Like most young children, Cheryl’s son loves to combine writing and art to create his own “published work.” Your child, however, may not like craft projects as much. Or perhaps you’re not a crafty person and would rather bypass the hands-on activities because they’re not your style.

Either way, it’s still important to encourage your child to produce a final draft because it reinforces the concept of editing and revising. So whether your child creates a crafty masterpiece or simply rewrites his final draft on fresh paper in his best penmanship, remember that the final draft is as much a part of the writing process as brainstorming and writing.

The quickest, easiest way to display your child’s story is to affix it to a slightly larger sheet of colored construction paper. The construction paper forms a simple mat that gives the final draft a polished, published look and reminds your student that he did his best.

Writing = Fun!

You want your child to associate writing with fun, and you want his brain to be stimulated in as many ways as possible through tactile and sensory experiences. So if your writing program offers crafty or game-focused writing activities, take the time to make the suggested props, even if it feels like busy work to you. Most children love using them—and they don’t even realize they’re learning!

. . . . .

WriteShop Primary and WriteShop Junior use creative, hands-on activities to teach and review elementary-age writing skills.

WriteShop Primary is currently available in three levels: Book A, Book B, and Book C. WriteShop Junior Book D will be published in Spring 2011. To be among the first to get the scoop about the book’s release, join our mailing list by visiting www.writeshop.com and looking for the newsletter sign-up box

By Nancy I. Sanders 

During the important elementary years, your children are developing the ability to read well and learning to form a positive attitude toward reading. You have the amazing privilege of shaping their hearts to embrace reading as a natural and desirable part of their world. Building a strong foundation of reading gives them the wings they need to fly successfully into the world of writing. 

Read Together

Some parents mistakenly think that when children become old enough to acquire basic reading skills, it’s time to pack them off and send them away into the land of independent reading. Yes, it’s time for them to build strong reading skills by reading on their own, but these pre-teen years are also the perfect time for them to build reading fluency and grow as readers (and writers) by hearing stories read aloud to them. 

Read aloud daily to your children.

We read aloud to our two sons from their earliest years on up through junior high. Even though they were avid independent readers at a young age, they still cherished these daily reading sessions as they grew older. Our selection of books grew as they matured, and we exposed them to books they probably wouldn’t have tackled alone at this age. 

Choose full-length books and read them aloud to your preteens from beginning to end, day after glorious day. Pick humorous books, adventure stories, and popular titles your kids want to hear. Devour classics together such as Farmer Boy, The Hobbit, Treasure Island, and To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Make reading books a good place to be.

Create an engaging and enchanting environment for reading aloud to your children.

• Snuggle together on the couch if your children like to snuggle.
• Go to unexpected or exotic places and let your children experience the sounds and smells around them as you read.
• Visit a farm, climb a hayloft, settle down in a comfy pile of hay, and read Charlotte’s Web aloud to them.
• Go on a picnic to an outdoor spot with a beautiful view and read from Anne of Green Gables.
• Carry a backpack with portable painting supplies. While your kids paint the scenery, read aloud from a collection of poems such as Poetry for Young People: Robert Frost.

Read Alone

Of course, elementary-age kids also benefit from independent reading. You can help make this experience a highlight of their childhood memories! 

Decorate your home to be a nest for books.

• Start by giving beautiful hardback children’s classics and boxed sets as birthday and Christmas gifts.
• Install bookshelves for rows of family favorites.
• Scatter square baskets or crates around different rooms to hold short stacks of books handy for small hands to reach in and grab.
• Provide reading spots with good lighting and comfortable chairs, beanbags, or couches.

Turn off the TV.

Unplug the video games. Turn off the radios and CDs. Invite everyone to grab books and settle in for some down time with a good read. If reading isn’t an everyday part of your normal routine, schedule it in. Show your kids reading is a priority in a world jam-packed with the stresses of organized sports, loud TV shows, and time-consuming responsibilities. Stop what you’re doing and read when they read, too. 

Take frequent trips to your library.

Get children their own library cards. Give them their own book bags to lug their selections home and to provide a place to gather books together again when the due date looms near. 

While they’re exploring and selecting their own titles from the library shelves, look for books geared for their level of independent reading. Most libraries offer countless titles of beginning readers and first chapter books for both struggling and advanced readers. Some titles are known as hi-lo books, which present themes and topics of interest for kids in upper elementary but use vocabulary words and sentence structure for lower reading levels. 

Select a wide variety of books geared specifically for your child’s independent reading level that will help her gain confidence and strengthen her reading skills. If you’re not sure where to look, try these ideas:

• Ask your librarian for help.
• Using the library’s (or your home) computer, visit a webpage such as Leveled Book Lists to find lists of books for different reading levels.
• To find out the reading or interest level of a particular book, try Scholastic’s Teacher Book Wizard.

Of course, always use discretion to ensure each book meets with your family’s standards and values.

While at the library, be sure to choose titles for your own enjoyment as well. Show your children that reading is important by modeling reading yourself. While you’re at it, visit the library’s used bookstore and purchase titles to build your own family’s personal library at home.

Look for reading enrichment activities.

These don’t take the place of reading, but work to enhance the environment you’re creating in your home. 

• Give your children magazine subscriptions for their birthday.
• Listen to audio books in the car while on a family road trip. There are a variety of options such as The Word of Promise: Complete Audio Bible
  and Tyndale’s Radio Theater’s audio version of The Chronicles of Narnia
• Many popular children’s classics are also available on CD. Dive into the world of books so your child’s reading and writing skills can blossom during these crucial formative years.

Copyright 2010 © Nancy I. Sanders. All rights reserved.

Library bookshelf photo by Brandi Jordan. Used by permission.

Do your older children have a hard time thinking of what to give a younger sibling for a birthday or Christmas gift? Why not encourage them to create a scrapbook-style (or digital) alphabet book for a fun writing project with a real purpose?

Making an ABC Book

Directions

1.  Gather stickers, die cuts, and pictures. Keep in mind that young children love bright colors. Collect pictures from old magazines, catalogs, greeting cards, and calendars as well as photos of familiar faces and objects.

For a digital ABC book, go through your own digital photos, encourage your older child to take some new ones, and look for free images online at sites such as StockXchng.

Make the book as personalized as possible by including pictures of things the child knows and loves. Use these categories as starting points:

• Family members and pets
• Foods, snacks, meals, and drinks
• Familiar household objects and furniture
• Familiar places (park, zoo, yard, store, fair)
• Animals
• Vehicles
• Facial expressions (happy, sad, mad)
• Articles of clothing
• Toys
• Colors
• Seasonal words, holidays, and activities
• Action words (jump, sleep, dig)

2. Using alphabet stickers or neat printing, label solid-color sheets of 8.5- x 11-inch scrapbooking paper with each letter of the alphabet, one letter per page. If possible, include both upper- and lower-case letters.

3. Glue pictures and photos to the appropriate page.

4. Neatly label each picture. Encourage older children to also write a sentence or poem using several of the words on that page.

5. When dry, insert pages into page-protector sleeves and place into a slim 3-ring binder.

Don’t you just love this creative, personal gift idea? So will the young recipient! Get your older child on board, warm up those crafting muscles, and let the fun begin! And if you prefer to go the digital route, check out some of the resources below.

Resources, Ideas, and Tips

ABC word lists

• Sample ABC Word List
• More ABC Word Lists
• In Our Write Minds seasonal word banks

ABC scrapbooking ideas

• How to Make an ABC Book – Specific to Your Child
• Making an Alphabet Book: Kodak Project Center

Digital scrapbooking resources

• Make a Digital ABC Book - If you want to use digital photos only
• Shutterfly – Print a hard or softcover digital ABC book.
• Artscow – Another resource for digital books.

Artscow BONUS! Get 6 FREE 20-page 8×8 books and 2 FREE 39-page 8×8 books. Coupon Code 888BKS4U. Add to cart by 11/8/10. Then you have 30 days to complete your projects!

Who says teaching writing skills to children has to be dull and rote? In truth, much learning happens when you infuse writing time with creativity, fun, and games!

You can help your child practice adding details to the middle of a story by playing a variation of hopscotch together. While a great activity for any child, it’s especially effective for active, kinesthetic learners.

Advance Prep

1. Draw a hopscotch grid on the sidewalk or patio, making each square big enough for your child’s foot (about 12″). Indoors, try marking off a grid on the floor using painters’ tape.
2. Explain to your child that the first square represents the beginning of the story, the four middle squares represent the middle of the story, and the last square represents the end of the story. (The two sets of side-by-side squares separate the middle of the story from the beginning and the end.)

Directions

1. Beginning: Have your child stand on the first hopscotch square, holding three beanbags or other markers in his hands. For the beginning of the story, tell him a story prompt that includes a problem the character faces. You may create your own story prompt, use StoryBuilders writing prompt cards, or choose some of these:

• Chloe was playing tennis on her Wii when suddenly, the tennis ball flew out of the screen and into her room.
• Michael got a toy remote control spy plane for his birthday, but when he flew it, he discovered it was really spying on him.
• Ethan’s pillow told him exciting bedtime stories. Every night the stories got longer and longer until Ethan couldn’t get any sleep.
• Carrie invented a pencil that had a calculator inside so that it did the math when she wrote down the problem. One day, however, it started to answer everything wrong.
• Bella’s uncle invented a board game with pieces that could move by themselves. Bella would tell the pieces where to move and they would obey her voice. But one day, the pieces told Bella to be quiet! 
• Hunter bought a robot that cleaned his room. But last week, the robot forgot how to do the chores.
• The dentist gave Abby a new Talk-a-Lot Toothbrush that told her how to brush her teeth better, but one day the toothbrush said it didn’t like toothpaste.
• Sam discovered a new snack called Hunger Munchers. One small bite satisfied his hunger for hours. But after a few days, Hunger Munchers stopped working. In fact, with each bite, Sam grew hungrier and hungrier until he couldn’t stop eating!

2.  Middle: Ask your child to think of one detail to add to the middle of his story. This detail should include how the main character would respond to the problem stated in the story prompt.

• When your child thinks of the detail and states it aloud, invite him to toss a marker and try to make it land (and stay) on one of the middle four squares of the hopscotch boxes.
• If the marker doesn’t land on one of the middle four squares, retrieve it and hand it to him to toss it again until it does.
• Ask your child to think of two more details to add to the middle of his story. For each detail, have him toss another marker on one of the four middle squares of the hopscotch boxes. (More than one marker can be on one square.)

When all three markers are on the hopscotch boxes, direct your child to hop down to the other end, skipping over the squares that have a marker.

3. End: Have your child stop at the other end and stand in that square. Ask him to think of a possible ending to the story. After he has stated a possible ending, instruct him to hop back to the beginning, this time stopping to pick up all three markers.

Keeping Score

If your child enjoys keeping score, he may score a point for each of the following:

• Hopping from start to finish without stepping on a line
• Hopping from start to finish without stepping outside the boxes
• Hopping with only one foot in each square (except the first and last squares)
• Hopping from start to finish without falling over

Repeat the activity as many times as your child is interested, using a story prompt each time and practicing adding three details to the middle of the story. 

. . . . .

Created by author Nancy I. Sanders, this hopscotch game is just one of the many fun and creative activities WriteShop Junior uses to teach and review writing skills at the elementary level. This game appears in Book D, which will be published in Spring 2011. To be among the first to get the scoop about the book’s release, join our mailing list by visiting www.writeshop.com and looking for the newsletter sign-up box.

Photo by D Sharon Pruitt. Used by permission.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve looked at basic writing stages of K-2nd graders and 3rd-5th graders.

The middle school years—typically 5th-8th grade—are the time to reinforce and build on previously-learned writing concepts. Motivated or advanced children will be able to take their current writing skills to a new level, while reluctant or resistant children, or those who lack fundamental writing skills, may need to go back to basics.

Use these middle-school years to make sure the foundation is strong. This is the time to work on:

• Writing complete and more complex sentences.
• Writing a well-developed paragraph.
• Improving grammar, punctuation, and capitalization.

How Much and How Often?

Provide your middle schoolers with a steady diet of writing activities. 

• Have them write 3-4 days a week.
• Aim for 8-15 writing projects per year (1-2 each month), meaning paragraphs and short reports that go through all the paces of the writing process.
• Tuck in other writing activities along the way—such as book reports, journal writing, and current events—that don’t require revisions.
• Spend no more than 45-60 minutes per writing day. Consider both the assignment itself as well as your child’s age and attention span.
• Students should primarily write 1- to 5-paragraph compositions and occasionally 1- to 2-page reports.

Become a Purposefully Involved Parent

During middle school, students should begin taking more responsibility for their own learning. At the same time, parents need to be purposefully and consistently involved. Though it’s tempting to let your child work independently, this isn’t the time to jump ship and abdicate your role as primary teacher. This means:

• Overseeing and supervising daily writing.
• Setting a pace for assignment completion so your child stays on task.
• Reading and commenting on each writing assignment to show that you’re interested and that you care.
• Promptly editing and returning work to keep your child from falling behind.

Also see Helping Your Highschooler with Writing

Copyright 2010 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

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In Spring 2011, WriteShop will introduce WriteShop Junior Book D, the first in a series of writing curricula for middle and upper elementary ages. To be among the first to get the scoop about the book’s release, join our mailing list by visiting www.writeshop.com and looking for the newsletter sign-up box.

Children in grades 6-8 can also begin using WriteShop I, a great program for teaching and reinforcing the steps of the writing process. Parent supervision is a key element of the program as you learn to equip and inspire successful writers.