Learning for Life

Writing in the Home

What parents & carers can do to help their children with writing:

• Encourage children to write, write, write! Provide many opportunities such as writing the shopping list, sending letters and cards to friends and relations, writing emails, keeping a diary, publishing personal stories, labelling photos in the family album and leaving notes. Writing should be relevant and meaningful rather than writing for the sake of writing.                                                                                                                                    
• Give children opportunities to read their stories aloud (while you sit back and listen). Listen with a focus on the message they express. Comment on what they have done well, for example: ‘I enjoyed how you used interesting words such as X, Y, Z.’ ‘The character you created seems so real. I can imagine how he looks.’                                                
• Draw children’s attention to how writing is presented, for example, on brochures, billboards, books and electronic media — these are models of writing for real purposes.                                                                                                                                               
• Create a community of writers. Provide a quiet place for writing with lots of writing materials. Leave notes for each other, write poems for your children and send messages in lunch containers. Play writing games, for example, one person writes the beginning, another the middle and the other the end of a family story. Write together.

Taken from PETAA

Fabiano Nigro

Literacy Learning Specialist