supporting your child with Writing at Home
Reading and writing are part of every aspect of your child’s life both in and out of school. It is essential that all young people who attend Morley Victoria leave us confident in constructing their own writing – whatever the task may be. We would like them to be confident in their writing style and be able to craft high level sentences and pieces of writing. If we work together to improve and develop our children’s writing both at school and at home then the overall impact will be much greater. Writing is an essential life skill that is needed in all occupations and different areas of life.
This information aims to give you lots of fun and meaningful activities that can be carried out at home.
BE TOGETHER-CRAFT TOGETHER-SHARE TOGETHER
General Tips and Ideas
Ideas for writing come when we spend time together talking, exploring, drawing, watching, reading and playing.
The basis of all good writing is dependent on knowing lots of words and being able to join them together in interesting ways.
Talking and children being able to verbalise their ideas and sentences is essential before they begin the process of writing.
Encourage your child/ren to explain a game or activity, describe a person, place or thing, retell stories, talk about visits, predict what might happen next in a story, programme or film and play word games.
Be a reading role model and read a range of texts together – stories, newspaper, poems, factual information, magazines, reports, letters, emails, adverts and instructions.
Discuss how different writing is laid out and how you can tell what type of writing it is, eg, a set of instructions contains a list and short focused sentences that tell you what to do.
Be a writing role model and encourage your child to write alongside you for real purposes, eg, shopping list, labels, invitations, thank you cards, emails to friends and postcards.
Model the editing and drafting stages of writing.
Create a shared space where you can write together and have a good writing position.
Have a range of writing materials – pencils, pencils, chalk, crayons, felt tips, sparkly pens, magnetic letters and different shaped writing paper.
Have a range of materials to support you child with their writing – dictionary, thesaurus, computer
Praise your child for trying and don’t dwell on mistakes – mistakes are part of the learning journey.
Focus on the content and enjoyment of writing.
Read out loud writing that you have composed together.
Mark Making - Early Writing
Encourage young children to look at print on road signs, food packages and in magazines.
Try fun activities to strengthen your child’s hand, eg, cutting, painting, squeezing, playdough, peg boards, picking small things up with tweezers.
Try fun activities to strengthen your child’s core strength, eg, rolling, bouncing, superman balance on the floor, sit ups, bridge and plank positions.
Use magnetic letters to make small words – leave a message on the fridge.
Praise mark making – early squiggles show your child is starting their writing journey.
Make up a story together using one of their toys – you write the story as they say the words.
Make up a little booklet of some writing you have done together – take photos and use these too.
Encourage your child/ren to make labels for paintings, models they have made.
Encourage your child to write their own cards, lists, letters, emails and invitations.
Cut out letters from magazines for children to make short words/sentences.
Make handwriting fun – practice drawing letters in sand, water, paint, using whiteboards, playdough, pastry or shaving foam in the bath.
Developing the writing process
Talk about experiences. Talk about what has been seen, heard, smelt, tasted and touched.
Play word building games such as Boggle, Scrabble, Guess Who, Who am I, I spy, Hang man.
Create silly sentences or tongue twisters together, eg, Sad Sid slipped on Sam’s salad sandwich.
Build a vocabulary journal.
Focus on what the writing says first before thinking about handwriting, spelling and punctuation – there is so much to think about in the process of writing.
Ask the children to write a set of instructions after making a model or baking a cake.
Plan their own birthday party.
Make up fun ways to remember how to spell certain words, eg, Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants = because.
Support your child to write a letter to their favorite author, sports person or family member.
Write an information page about a hobby or something they find interesting – illustrate and label photos and pictures.
Remember writing does not need to be long – it can be short and snappy.
How can you publish work at home?
Put the writing in a frame
Put the writing on the bedroom wall on the fridge
Record someone reading the writing and send it to a family member
Mail it to someone to read
Bring it into school
Enter it into a writing competition
Here are a few things you can write together:
Lists, stories, leaflets, posters, adverts, poems, letters, instructions, blogs, riddles, rhymes, songs, jokes, signs, labels, newspaper, comics, myths, experiments, reports, play scripts, diary, menu, holiday journal.
