As a home schooling parent, you probably have some concerns about teaching writing, especially if you are not too keen on restraining your children with a curriculum. Luckily, there are plenty of fun and enjoyable ways for you to teach writing - you can create your own curriculum.
Here are some of the steps you can take in order to have amazing writing lessons.
- Allow them to create their own blogs
Each of your students is an expert at something. That something can be football or gardening or painting - it doesn't matter. Let them create their own, unique blogs where they can share their passion and write about what they love. As they do that, their love of writing will develop and improve and you can oversee the entire process. You can also introduce them to writing guides like StateOfWriting and Via Writing.
Their first few posts may be a bit shy and prone to style mistakes but as you continue teaching them through fun exercises, you'll be able to measure just how much progress they have made in that time period.
It's often hard to find ideas when you need them. This is why you could fill a jar with writing prompts either found online or the ones you think of yourself. Each student should draw a paper and they have to write on that subject. This way, they won't be able to choose and they will develop their skills on multiple subjects and areas.
Another thing you could do is use apps that provide prompts or use Google Search to find images that will give your students both prompts and inspiration to write.
- Think of fun ways to entice them to write
As anyone in this world, your children need inspiration too. This is why it's a good idea to start your lessons off by letting them read aloud, listen to poetry, memorize poetry or analyze popular literature appropriate for their age.
However, it's also a good idea to find the time to point out what some common grammar and spelling mistakes might be as those affect the quality or written work. There are great and simple ways to reach your students and negativity is not one of them.
Let them have fun once in a while by proposing funny topics, games with words or something similar. They could even create their own game and have fun while learning some things that might come in handy later.
All of this may seem to you like a waste of time, but to them it will be a necessary relief and they'll learn to love your lessons even more.
Writing journals is a good creative outlet and a good space to practice free writing. They could write down their thoughts, dreams and everyday events without having an obligation of showing them to you.
This way they will love writing on their own once they realize how good keeping a journal feels.
It's never a good idea to criticize your children in a way that will create negative feelings about the subject at hand. Especially with writing, you need to be careful with what you say to them since what they write is a big part of what they think and how they feel.
For instance, if you feel like the formatting could have been done better, you don't have to say 'Oh, this is bad, you should do this... '. Instead, you might want to say 'I like the way you did that. Here is how I did it. Which do you think is more readable?' etc. Then proceed to show them some tools like UK Writings or Boom Essays that they could use to improve their formatting.
ConclusionHowever hard teaching may be - especially teaching something as creative as writing - it also creates many wonderful moments for you and your children. It lets you get to know them better and they get to show you bits of what they are thinking and feeling. This is why you need to be supportive and keep up with your efforts to inspire love of writing in them.
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