Building up writing skills
Without inducing a breakdown
My children are six and eight. For a while I’ve been aware that if they were at school they would probably be doing more writing than they do at home. That’s ok—we home educate partly because I don’t think the children need to do everything exactly the same as their peers at school. But still, I wanted to encourage a little more writing.
A friend once observed that a home-educating parent exerts a very different sort of authority to a teacher in a classroom. In a classroom, the teacher tells the children to open their books and write about what they did at the weekend, and most of the children will do it, simply because that’s what the other children are doing and because that’s what you do at school. But at home it’s a different dynamic.
Yes, each morning I tell the children we’re going to do some maths and some reading aloud and so forth, and they are generally willing and motivated. I have always been the type of parent who asks the children to do something, rather than telling them to do it. I remember a nursery teacher telling me I would cause problems for myself one day because eventually the children would learn that they could simply decline my request. And yes, sometimes I do have to say ‘Go And Put Your Pyjamas On!’ when the polite request has been ignored three times—what parent doesn’t? But generally I like my way of doing things.
Nonetheless, if I asked my children to simply sit down and write, they would flatly refuse.
Some things have to be introduced with a bit of guile.
So I resisted the temptation to institute a regular daily writing practice, which I knew they would hate. After mulling it over, I decided the best thing would be to encourage slightly more writing in a space where it was already happening. The obvious place to start was the history folder. Each child has a ringbinder folder. They add their own pages recording a particular event, often of my suggestion but they also like to come up with their own noteworthy dates, like the publication of a favourite book or the first time snakes show up in the fossil record. They flick through the existing pages to find the correct place to add the new event.
So I decided that adding a page to the history folders would become a standing weekly activity, instead of something we do when inspiration strikes. After I’ve done some reading aloud, each child chooses a particular part of the reading and makes their page. For my daughter (8), I’ve started to suggest that she writes a little more than ‘1066 Battle of Hastings’, and comes up with her own short summary of the event in question. It was, initially, like drawing blood from a stone, but of course, as with anything, the more you do it the better you get. As she gets better at writing, she is starting to write other things, voluntarily, and her stamina is improving enormously (don’t underestimate just how much effort it is for small children to write). This past week she wrote a diary entry, a letter, a history page, and added to her reading record.
Oh yes, the reading records! Last summer I started keeping a record of each book the children read to themselves. (The chapter books, not every single picture book.) I keep my own reading record, and love looking back at what I read. I quietly hoped that they’d one day start keeping the record themselves, and this May I was rewarded. I am now forbidden from writing in the books, and once or twice a week I get them out and ask the children to add in their latest reading. As with the history folders, I encourage them to add a little more than just title and author: Perhaps what they particularly did (or didn’t) enjoy, or a moment that was especially exciting, or which character they loved/hated. This is also a good way to just chat about their books together. I don’t force it—I’d rather they simply record title and author than turn them off the thing altogether.
I can’t say whether their writing is coming along because of the increased practice, or if the increased practice is happening because their writing is just naturally coming along at this point. Certainly I have had experience of trying to get a child to do something that they’re just not ready for, and it is not a rewarding experience for anybody! But I am pleased that I resisted the urge to institute a daily writing practice or insist on them completing handwriting workbooks. (They do each have such workbooks, but only use them rather sporadically.) The rhythm of history pages and reading records means that they aren’t surprised when I suggest these activities, and they know it won’t take forever, and they also both enjoy looking back at their previous work (and seeing how much they’ve improved). I have suggested to my daughter that in the next few months it might be a good idea to start a science notebook to record her experiments and learning (an idea from the Well-Trained Mind). Again, it will be very short and sweet to begin with, but—hopefully—will become another regular bit of writing practice as she continues to develop her skills.
Regular readers might have wondered where I’d got to recently. I’ve just been thoroughly enjoying having some time offline! But I do have some things I wanted to share with you, so hopefully, if I can drag myself to the screen, in the next few weeks I’ll have some of the following:
Recent favourite books (including some out of print ones that I think you should track down).
What we do at home that’s different from school, because a friend asked and it got me thinking.
How I plan, annually, termly, and weekly (’tis the season!)
What Kew Gardens put in their science backpacks, so you can make your own.
And here are a couple of things you might enjoy:
- from Jonathan Firth has interesting posts on things like teaching multiplication and spellings.
- is the result of an engineer who wants to share earth science with everyone. Posts include the geology of the moon, gold, and lava tubes. I’m looking forward to educating myself so I can keep up with my children!
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I'm a retired teacher who takes great interest in what homeschooling parents are doing these days. When I was teaching English in the middle grades and would ask the students to write about an experience, I was aware of two things. First, many students from lower economic backgrounds had few experiences outside of the classroom. Their summers were not filled with vacations and field trips; they weren't taken to libraries and museums. I applaud your efforts to write about what your children have experienced as well as the history bits. Second, I noticed that we don't teach sentence construction. Usually, at the lower grades, students wrote a few words and then their teachers prodded them to add to their sentences. They wrote sentences with "and ... and ... and". English has lots of interesting constructions in its sentences. When I read a biography of Benjamin Franklin (American printer and patriot), I was struck by his method of reading Punch magazines imported from Britain and then trying to reconstruct the sentences from memory. He was trying to educate himself but he was also exploring his own writing style. When you read a sentence with your kids, could you look at the styling and then try to "copy in a new way"? Peter Rabbit's "Round the end of the cucumber frame, whom should he meet but ..." is a great example of suspense. Your young writers could come round the end of innumerable objects to meet all sorts of people and things. Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much for the very kind shout-out, Catherine!
It is very noble of you to take the task of schooling your children, and it sounds like they are well on their way to becoming impressive adults. I love your idea of instituting daily reading and writing time for your children and think a science notebook would be very useful for them. Learning to design experiments to test their questions about why things happen would be an incredibly useful skill. Just the thought of questioning why or how should serve them very well.
Thank you again!