Writing Recommendations
How to Help Your Child with Writing
Mr. Clarke, January 2015
What Writing Looks Like in School
 Writing is a subject that is taught explicitly in school every
day. The focus is on organization, adding details, improving
beginnings and endings, improving transitional phrases etc.
 Children are writing a lot every day (several pages a day by
grades 3-6).
 Children are writing for a purpose. It could be an article,
book, brochure, letter etc (not just for assignments).
 Children are using the writing process daily (idea
development, rehearsal, drafting, revising, conferring,
editing, publishing).
 Children are generating their own new ideas and topics daily
(as opposed to being assigned a writing topic).
 Children are using models to learn from (published books,
exemplary student writing, teacher writing).
 Children are getting focused individual feedback from their
teacher.
 Children are writing an equal amount of fiction and
nonfiction.
 Children are taught how to edit their own work.
How You Can Help Your Child At Home
 You can help your child generate and develop ideas in their
Writer’s Notebook (Grades 3-6).
 You can help by giving your child time to talk to you about
what he or she is writing. Research shows there is a strong
link between speaking and writing.
 You can help your child by keeping a Writer’s Notebook
yourself and sharing your own writing with your child.
 You can help your child by assisting them in developing their
“Writing Territories.” This is a thinking map of topics your
child knows a lot about or topics your child has a strong
interest in learning about.
 When helping your child, focus on topics and idea
development as opposed to spelling and grammar.
 If your child is having difficulty with spelling, make site
word flash cards based on misspellings in your child’s
written work and have them practice the spelling of the
words verbally (grade level appropriate words).
 If your child is having trouble with making sense, run ons or
sentence fragments, have your child read their writing out
loud so they can hear themselves and make the appropriate
changes. One idea that works well is to have your child
whisper read into a device such as a plumbing elbow. This is
a terrific way to have your child hear their writing. It will
make it easier for them to edit their own work.