Learning &

  Teaching

Building your child's writing skills

Children experiment with writing long before they start school. Their early squiggles and drawings are the beginning of writing. Books provide a powerful model of what writing looks like. Books convey the understanding that squiggles on a page deliver a message. Reading and writing with your children helps them to make sense of how written language works.

We learn to write by writing. Most children love to write! In classrooms, children are encouraged to select topics that express their ideas and interests. It is difficult (sometimes impossible) to write about unfamiliar topics or topics that are irrelevant to our life experiences. Before writing, talking about a topic is a good place to collect thoughts and ideas.

Children need many opportunities to express their thoughts and ideas in writing without being concerned about the mechanics of writing, such as spelling, punctuation and grammar. At this stage, worrying about spelling, punctuation and grammar can hinder their styles, expressions and exploration of words that best communicate their ideas. In fact, this level of response often 'kills off' the writer who learns to write less and take fewer risks.

Work that comes home from school may not have every spelling error corrected, grammatical mistake rectified or punctuation inserted. It is important to talk with your children about the purpose of the work and what they learned, rather than emphasise the errors. Ask 'tell me' questions such as: ‘Tell me about this work …’ ‘Tell me how you did this …’ ‘Tell me what you liked about this activity.’

Don't Forget to Check out your Child's Home Learning Page!

Please click on the link below to visit your child’s Home Learning Page to stay up to date with their learning.