Read and Write Everyday

[author][author_info]Flossie Epley has been with TEAM since 1981. She is founder and director of School Support Services (SSS) at Christian Academy in Japan (CAJ). For thirty years SSS has been offering consultancy, resources, and programs to home schoolers and schools affiliated with CAJ in Japan. Flossie and her husband Russ have two adult children and one grandchild.[/author_info] [/author]

Over the years many SSS families have heard my mantra, Read and Write in English Everyday. This doesn’t mean to write an essay everyday, but to write something. Teaching the craft of writing is helpful, but actually putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard!) is essential for improving writing. A writing notebook is a perfect place to start. Young children can write one word a day and eventually one sentence per day. An upper elementary or middle school student can write a list of favorite somethings, jot down a diary entry, write about a favorite topic, or even copy someone else’s good writing (a poem, Bible verse, or paragraph from a book.)

Check out this site for some quick reading tips for every age preschool to high school.

The goal in teaching writing is to help your child improve. One thing that helps take off pressure is to initially just choose the topic for your child. You can find writing prompts for elementary age kids here or middle schoolers here.

Ask questions and talk about the topic first to help your child think about what to write. Model and teach him/her how to use a graphic organizer to plan out the flow.

If you wonder what reasonable expectations are for your child, check out these anchor papers at Write Source. There are samples of writing for each grade level. These are edited finished products written by ordinary kids (not the best writers or the worst.)

Some of my favorite books to help kids improve their writing are the listed below. They are all available through SSS if you prefer not to order them directly.

Write about Me and Write about My World by Elsie S. Wilmerding. These are perfect for the beginning writer. Each page can be completed in one session and includes drawing as well as writing.

Just Write This series of three books works well for elementary students.

Daily Grams Daily Grams has a book for each grade listed below (with a slightly different name for the grade 2 book.) This series is one of the most effective and efficient books I’ve ever come across for teaching the mechanics of writing. It takes about ten minutes a day for students to copy the sentences and make capitalization, punctuation, and grammar corrections. Each day the student also combines two or three sentences into one more complex sentence. This is valuable for all students, but especially for those learning English as an additional language. The student workbook is not needed. I believe much of the value of the series is copying sentences in a notebook and having the child check his/her own work.
Daily Guided Teaching and Review for grade two
Daily Grams Grade Three
Daily Grams Grade Four
Daily Grams Grade Five
Daily Grams Grade Six
Daily Grams Grade Seven
Daily Grams Junior & Senior High
If your child is not catching onto the concepts using Daily Grams, then they may benefit from the more detailed teaching found in Easy Grammar books.

Growing a writer takes time. The first step is to just write…preferably a little bit everyday!