Although it’s is one of the most necessary and helpful steps of the writing process, brainstorming can stump a reluctant writer—even if she’s using a worksheet, graphic organizer, or parent prompting.

You:    What comes to mind when you think of the beach?
Child: Sand and water.
You:    Great! What else?
Child: That’s all I can think of.

And that’s on a good day!

Prime the Pump

When students have a deep “well” of words and ideas from which to draw, their compositions becomes more vivid and concrete. That’s why WriteShop repeatedly emphasizes the need for adequate brainstorming as a routine part of the writing process. But if their well is dry and they can’t come up with enough words or ideas, their compositions will fall flat.

To keep ideas fresh and flowing, students need to prime their writing pumps on a regular basis. By practicing frequent brainstorming—especially when there’s no added pressure to write a composition—they’ll discover that they can think of words more quickly and abundantly. An activity like the Writing Well is a perfect training tool!

The Writing Well

The “Writing Well” is designed to stimulate vocabulary, ideas, and impressions on a particular topic. It makes a good pre-writing activity, but it’s really brainstorming practice in disguise!

Kept in a small notebook, these brainstorming results can also become a “seed book”—a resource, word bank, or collection of ideas—when writing future compositions.

Student Directions

1. You will find it helpful to keep your “Writing Well” in a spiral notebook for easy reference.
2. Use a separate page for each topic. You may use both front and back if you wish.
3. Before beginning, choose a topic and write it at the top of the page. Then set the timer to write for five full minutes.
4. The purpose of this exercise is to write down all the words, phrases, or sentences that come to mind about your chosen topic within the five minutes allotted.

If you get stuck, try some of these ideas:

• Picture the topic in your mind. Use your five senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell—to describe details.
• Ask yourself questions about the subject matter—who? what? when? where? why? how?
• Use a photograph or magazine picture to jog your thoughts.

At first this activity may seem difficult. You may wonder: How can I write about one thing for five whole minutes? Relax! Over time you’ll find that it has become more natural to transfer ideas from your head to your paper.

Some of these exercises will lend themselves to becoming compositions. Put a colorful star at the top of the page if you might like to develop this into a paragraph or story in the future.

Parent Tips

In the beginning, your child may have trouble writing for five full minutes. Perhaps you could set the timer for three minutes, then increase it to four, and finally to five over the course of several weeks.

If your student brainstorms very generally about a topic, you might suggest next time that she narrow her topic even further. For example, if she writes on the topic of animals, she’ll probably include a list of many kinds of animals. Next time, have her select just one of those animals (such as dogs, monkeys, or whales) and make a “Writing Well” for that subtopic, including as many details as she can.

Should your student repeatedly make lists of words only, challenge her to begin writing descriptive phrases, too. Sometimes these will be factual and sometimes experiential. For example:

If she’s writing about “red,” words and phrases might include:

• ketchup
• stop signs
• making Valentines for my family
• embers glowing in the fireplace
• fire engines
• Dorothy’s ruby slippers
• the crimson sunset on our vacation in California  

If she’s writing about Grandma, phrases might include:

• baking chocolate cookies together
• lives in an apartment in Miami
• smells sweet like roses
• takes a ceramics class in her clubhouse
• silver hair
• favorite color is pink

The random list of ”red” words and phrases probably won’t ever be developed into a paragraph. On the other hand, the “Grandma” list definitely has potential to become a great descriptive composition at some point.

Writing Well Topics

Are you ready? Dip your ladle deep into the Writing Well and pull up a full, soaking draught of words and ideas. Then spill them over a fresh page—and let the writing begin. Here are some topics to get you started!

• a famous place I would like to visit
• my dream car
• gardens
• books
• animals (farm animals, jungle creatures, pets, birds, insects)
• birthdays
• the beach
• fishing
• obeying
• snow
• sounds that make me happy (nervous, afraid)
• my childhood toys
• my favorite meal
• my grandpa (or other family member)
• our pantry
• Saturdays
• things I like about myself
• heaven
• the color blue (orange, yellow, gray, green)
• things that make me feel cozy
• new uses for duct tape
• If cars could fly…
• If I had to live underwater…

Copyright © 2012 Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

. . . . .

“The Writing Well” is one of the supplemental writing activities tucked into the appendix of the Teacher’s Manual for WriteShop I and II.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr. Other photos courtesy of stock.xchg. Used with permission.

Picture Files

Keep file folders of colorful prints, magazine pictures, and calendar photos sorted by topic: animals, people, nature, buildings, and the like. Have each child choose a picture for inspiration and write a short story based upon the picture.

Songwriting Challenge

Provide a selection of index cards with a word written on each card. Each child draws one card at a time, until all the cards are drawn. Now, each child will write a song or jingle using all the words they’ve drawn. Work out melodies and rhythms and entertain one another with a performance!

Now Hiring!

Provide sample résumés for this writing activity center. Allow your children time to study the résumés for ideas and formats. Here’s one to get you started, but you can find many other examples online by doing a Google search.

Have your kids put together a résumé of their lives. What should be included? What jobs might they be interested in, now and in the future? What information would they want their future employers to know? Remind the children to consider those questions as they write their résumés.

Noun Safari

Keep available a selection of magazines, glue sticks or tape, construction paper, and scissors. Ask children to look through the magazines, searching for nouns. Cut out the nouns and glue them to construction paper. Later, select a noun from one of the noun pages, and use that specific noun as the basis for a story.

Related Posts: Writing Activity Centers: Part 1, Writing Activity Centers: Part 2, Writing Activity Centers: Part 3

. . . . .

Janet Wagner is a regular 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.

Rain Forest Review

Collect a basket of items related to the world’s rain forests: nonfiction books, magazines, posters, and advocacy materials. Have the children read and browse through these materials, learning more about the importance of rainforests. Ask each child to write a simple paragraph or two about their discoveries, complete with illustrations, and share their knowledge with family members.

It’s a Wonderful Life!

Provide small construction paper booklets. On each page, have younger children draw pictures of the very special events in their lives. Ask them to write a few sentences to accompany each picture.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

Fill a basket or box with recent local and national newspapers. Read through a number of articles together for ideas on the content and format of news stories. Provide newsprint, colored pencils, and colored paper. With your children, create a family newspaper. Mail it to Grandma!

Vocabulary Web Contests

In the middle of a large sheet of paper, write a single noun, accompanied by an illustration. On the paper, each child takes turns writing down words that describe or are associated with the noun. For example, the word in the middle might be strawberry. Children would add words to the poster like tasty, red, squishy, snack, fruit, sweet, soft, or ice cream. The more words, the better!

Reader’s Theater

Provide a number of reader’s theater scripts for your children to read aloud, practicing oral expression and fluency. Choose a favorite script and continue the further adventures of the characters, writing the next act. For free scripts and ideas, start here:

• Reader’s Theater Scripts and Plays
• The Reading Lady – Dozens of downloadable scripts
• Reader’s Theater Tips and Scripts

Literary Journals

Encourage regular independent reading of novels and small chapter books. set aside a day each week to write and draw in special journals about the books your kids have chosen for “fun” reading.

Sell the Sequel!

Plan, draft, and write a sequel to a favorite novel. Which characters will appear in the sequel? What’s the new plot?

Related Posts: Writing Activity Centers: Part 1, Writing Activity Centers, Part 2

. . . . .

Janet Wagner is a regular 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.

Summer is a season of travel, a time of sandy beaches, hypnotic sunshine, stamped tickets, and the excited laughter of children visiting out-of-the-ordinary places.

Summer vacations—and the summer months—fill our minds with those moments of wonder and imagination so natural to childhood and keep us connected to our own children.

But sometimes the household budget doesn’t stretch quite far enough for exotic adventures.

What to do?

Go anyway!

Here’s how!

Start with a Map

• Gather your family around the kitchen table with paper, pencils, pens, and an atlas. Better yet, pull out a road map of your state. As these maps are more detailed for the traveler, interstate road maps usually have the richer place names.
• Study some maps, reading place names aloud. Listen for those syllables and sounds that tickle and tempt your ear, hinting at the exotic. Where I live, nearby towns, rivers, and ancient mountain ranges honor the first Americans who dwelled here. Names like “Uwharrie,” “Oconeechi,” “Saponi,” “Lumbee,” “Saxapahaw,” and “Eno” dot the landscape and tease my heart and mind.
• Make a list of place names you like.
• Begin to imagine an island or a country or a planet where you’d like to visit.

Set Your Imagination Loose

Begin to paint this place with words and phrases.

What color is the sky? Are there cliffs, rivers, canyons, or mountains?

Name the landforms. Are there trees or flowering plants? What do they look like? Describe and name the flowers.

Place yourself there. What does the ground feel like under your feet? Stony? Sandy?

What kind of person, or wonderful being, could you allow yourself to be there?

Create Your World

As ideas shape themselves around your kitchen table, have your children create colorful maps and illustrated “travel guides” of their visionary worlds.

Don’t forget rich descriptions, helping your kids write and edit for an imaginary audience of would-be adventurers or vacationers. This is the magic of writing! In the creative power of words, our children are free to journey through the realms of their own sacred and unique imaginations.

As adults, what a wonderful gift we can give our kids: a love of adventure enhanced with the tools of creative writing.

Enjoy your magical travels this summer!

. . . . .

Janet Wagner is a regular 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.

“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.

This statement surprised me, for it reminded me of taking a trip with little more than a vague notion of a plan (“I want to see the USA”). You can set off on your trek, but without a map, timetable, or sightseeing strategy, you’ll end up rabbit-trailing your way to your journey’s end.

While this may be fine for a bohemian, it can frustrate the traveler who really wants to visit a particular landmark but can’t find the turnoff; annoy her for missing some must-see points of interest because she lingered too long in a mediocre little town; and aggravate her when she finds herself going in circles. Worse, she could end up seeing nothing at all because she has absolutely no idea which way to go.

It’s fun to be spontaneous, but to get the most from a road trip, there’s nothing like an itinerary.

The Value of Brainstorming

Like a free-spirited traveler, a writer may have a general idea of where he wants to go. He may even know a point or two he wants to make along the way. But without a sense of direction, he too will miss important details, spend unnecessary time on a trivial side note, or spin his wheels in one rut or another.

One of the most valuable pre-writing tools for launching the writing process and avoiding other pitfalls is brainstorming.

Students often struggle with knowing how to move from a general topic to a written essay because that paralyzing blank page stands in the way. Brainstorming is a problem-solving process that helps you:

• Think freely and openly about your topic.
• Put pen to paper as you write whatever ideas come to mind.
• Explore possibilities and connections between ideas.
• Let new ideas form and shape old ones.
• Start to bring order and organization to your scattered thoughts.

Most importantly, brainstorming has no wrong answers. It allows you to think through your topic without fear of criticism or perfection.

3 Steps of the Brainstorming Process

• Free-listing: Free-listing helps you develop an initial page of ideas about the topic by writing absolutely anything—key words, phrases, examples, main points, subpoints, details, illustrations—that come to mind to jog your thoughts about your subject. Free-listing uses the heuristic inquiry, more commonly known as the 5 Ws (and an H)—who, what, when, where, why, how. Once this primary list is “complete,” note which of your ideas would qualify as main points or categories and which would be better suited as supporting details or examples.
• Mind-mapping: Next, filter your free-listing ideas through a semantic mind-map. A semantic mind-map is used to represent ideas, words, or thoughts that are connected to and organized around a central key word or concept. Mind-maps are designed to help create, visualize, classify, and structure ideas.
• Re-listing: Finally, organize your ideas according to the groups or clusters created by the semantic mind-map. Identify the central idea (main point) of the various clusters and list supporting details beneath and prioritize these clusters/main points into a logical order. Re-listing results in a rudimentary outline of your initial thoughts and ideas.

The brainstorming process reminds me of a coin-sorting machine. You start off with a jumbled, disorganized pile of coins (ideas). Nickels, dimes, quarters, pennies—there’s no rhyme or reason to their scattered placement on the kitchen table. This is your initial attempt at free-listing.

To start putting the coins in their appropriate place, you gather them up and put them into a coin-sorting machine (semantic mind-map). The machine divides the coins (ideas) by kind, just like the bubbles of a mind-map divide your ideas by category.

Finally, watch as your coins come out of the sorting machine in rows of quarters, dimes, and nickels neatly arranged (re-list). In this way, putting your ideas through a mind-map will help you rearrange them into newly organized lists that set the priorities for your paper.

Taking the Trip

You think about the gazillion places you want to visit; explore websites and sort through piles of travel brochures; plot out a route; and plan the details. Along the way you may take a detour or explore a new place, but you’ll never stray far from your original plan. Because you took time to brainstorm, your readers will enjoy the journey with you—and will thank you for being such an excellent guide!

Copyright 2011 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved. 

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. 

Quick! Take this survey:

1. Do your students complain about having to edit and revise their compositions and essays?
2. Do they hate having to spend several days on the same writing topic (brainstorming, writing a draft, self-editing, and revising)?
3. Do they become apathetic and lose steam by the time they get to the final draft?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, I have good news: Your kids are completely normal! But short of dragging them across broken glass or hot coals, how can you teach them to embrace the steps of the process as a natural, expected part of writing? 

Writing Is Hard Work

If you’ve not used a formal writing program before, it’s possible that the writing process is new to your children. Regardless, they’re not alone. I wish there were a magic wand I could wave over them to help them like it better, but in truth, writing is hard work, and it takes time and discipline. 

Unless they’re making lists, journaling, or emailing a friend, most writing does require planning, drafting, editing, and revising. This would be true whether you use WriteShop, some other writing program, or simply create your own writing assignments.

Typically, students want to write a paper once and be done with it. They don’t want to brainstorm, and they certainly don’t want to rewrite it. But whether or not these steps of the writing process are built into the curriculum (as they are with WriteShop), it’s really important for children to come to terms with the reality that this is how writers—from students to professional authors—write.

A Look at the Writing Process

There are three main parts of the writing process: brainstorming, writing, and editing and revising.

Brainstorming

The student who just sits down to write without having first brainstormed will either stare at the page with a blank look, unable to think of anything, or she’ll write in a fairly disorganized fashion, repeat herself, include unnecessary detail, or omit key ideas. Even in timed-writing sessions, students are encouraged to dash out a quick outline to help them focus on what the question is asking and to keep them from drifting off-topic as they write. Simply, brainstorming focuses a writer. It helps her choose details, plan and organize her story or report, stay on track, and avoid tangents. 

Writing

Writing is done in stages. The first draft serves to get those rough, new ideas onto the paper. By its very design, the first draft is meant to be revised later.

Editing and revising

Whether or not your child agrees, every paper benefits from revision, and editing gives her a chance to make some modifications. Even this blog article was edited and revised many times before I posted it. I don’t just try to catch typos; I also want to make sure my answers are complete and clear, my thoughts are organized, and my tone is professional yet conversational. This self-editing process tends to be subjective for most of us because we feel an emotional attachment to each and every word. That’s exactly why your child needs to turn her work in to you for objective feedback: She needs an outside opinion in order to write a more polished final draft  

Helping Your Student “Get It”

OK. You and I agree that the writing process is important. Yet the $20,000 question remains: How do we get our kids on board? Again, there are no magic answers, but I can offer a few ideas:

Show your teen she’s not alone.

Your student may feel as though she’s the only one who has to plan, write, and revise her compositions. Discovering that the writing process is universal may help her back down a bit. For fun, you might ask her to do a Google search for the term “writing process.” I bet she’ll be surprised to find over 21 million results!

Give freedom to a creative child.

It’s natural to expect a negative response from a reluctant, resistant writer. But if a student who normally loves writing fits this profile too, maybe she feels her creativity is being stifled when she is asked to brainstorm or make changes to her text.

First and foremost, give such a student the freedom to write for the sheer joy of writing—plays, stories, poems, whatever she loves! Separate these experiences from her writing lesson by not requiring her to plan or revise these stories. For her, use the writing process to teach skills in the same way that math drills, piano lessons, or other repetitive activities teach, reinforce, and offer practice. Let her write to her heart’s delight in her free time, but also require her to learn discipline through the structure of the writing process.

Use analogies.

As a parent, I’m sure all this makes sense to you. The hard part is communicating it to your student. I find that analogies can help explain things so that she can get it too. Here are some past blog articles that deal with the writing process. Several offer different analogies that compare the writing process with things like gardening, cooking, scrapbooking, and spelunking (caving). See if one or two of these analogies spark understanding in your reluctant student. 

• Your child’s writing: Garden or weed patch?
• What’s your favorite part of writing?
• News flash! Kids hate to self edit
• 6 simple truths  
• How is a writer like a spelunker?
• 10 stumbling blocks to writing (11-part series)

Point to the future.

Students who choose to go to college quickly discover that the writing process is taught there as well. And as much as they may grumble and complain, it’s to their benefit to plan, draft, and improve each piece of writing.

Among curriculum sites, public schools, universities, and professional writers’ blogs and websites, the writing process is regarded as key to success. To help your teen see how vital these repetitive skills are, even at the college and professional level, here are a couple of outside sources that further explain the purpose and various stages of the writing process.

• Links to dozens of university writing center websites
• The Writing Process  
• Effective Business Writing: The Writing Process

Start Young

In the end, there’s no shortcut to bypass the writing process. Planning and revising are as important to a composition or essay’s success as the actual writing. The best way to avoid arguments, head-butting, and apathy is to train your children while they’re young, perhaps using a program like WriteShop Primary (or the upcoming WriteShop Junior). If they grow up with the writing process, they’ll be more likely to accept and value it, even if they never learn to love it.

Copyright 2011 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

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.

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.