A Guide to Helping your Child with Writing

Horspath C.E. Primary

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CONTENTS

Page 2 Introduction

Page 3 & 4 Top Tips and Ideas

Page 5 & 6 Early Writing and Writers

Page 7 & 8 Developing Writers

Page 9 &10 Confident Writers

Page 11 Encouraging Less Confident Writers

Page 12 - 14 Developing Good Handwriting

Techniques

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INTRODUCTION

Writing is quite often seen as a challenging area of the curriculum by

children and understandingly so as it involves developing several skills.

At Horspath School we expose children to a wide range of writing,

ensuring that we give it relevance. Throughout the school we also

emphasise writing across the curriculum and all efforts are valued.

We develop the individual needs of all children as well as teaching the

knowledge that your child will need to develop their writing skills.

Whilst children do lots of literacy based activities at school there are

many ways that you can support them at home. This booklet aims to give

you some suggestions and ideas for making writing fun and meaningful at

home whilst supporting the improvement of your child’s achievement at

school.

Michelle Bailey

Literacy subject leader

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TOP TIPS AND IDEAS

The basis of good writing is ‘good talking’. Writing depends on knowing

lots of words and being able to join them together in interesting ways.

Encourage your child/children to:

Describe a person, place, picture or thing

Retell a story

Explain a game to you

Talk about things they have done e.g. a school visit, their day and

encourage detail

Predict what might happen next in a story, TV programme etc.

Play word games

Be a reading model and read to your child/children e.g. stories,

poems, factual information such as timetables, magazines,

newspapers, letters, emails, adverts, instructions etc.

Be a writing model and encourage your child to write alongside you

for real purposes e.g. shopping lists, birthday cards, labels, invitations,

postcards, diaries, menus.

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Have an exciting range of writing materials e.g. a range of pencils,

pens, coloured crayons, writing icing for cakes or biscuits, writing

soaps/crayons for in the bath.

Praise your child for trying and don’t dwell on their mistakes. Focus on

the enjoyment of writing for fun and for a purpose.

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EARLY WRITING AND WRITERS

Encourage young children to look at print on road signs, food packets,

in books, magazines and catalogues. Go to the library and read favourite

books over and over again! Your child will enjoy this.

Try activities that strengthen your child’s hand e.g. cutting, painting,

squeezing, playdough, picking up small objects with tweezers and pegs.

Use magnetic letters and make words together. Leave a message on

the fridge door and encourage your child to reply.

Praise play writing- early squiggles and marks show that your child is

beginning to understand writing.

Make up a story together about one of their toys. You write the story

as they say the words. Make a booklet. Take photographs and use the

pictures in their book.

Collect stickers of their favourite TV programme, book or hobby. Make

their own book about these.

Let your child/children write their own cards (birthday or Christmas),

invitations or lists (for shopping or what to pack for a holiday).

Cut up letters from magazines so that they can stick them together to

make their own name or a short sentence.

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Make handwriting interesting – practise letters in sand, paint, shaving

foam, glitter, playdough, pastry etc. There are guides to letter formation

on the school website.

https://horspath.oxon.sch.uk/parents/how-to-help-your-child-with/

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DEVELOPING WRITERS Continue talking about experiences as this is still the key to good

writing. Talk about what they have heard, seen, smelled, tasted and

touched with as much detail as possible.

Play word building games to develop their ability to describe things e.g

Boggle, Scrabble, Guess Who, What am I?

Create silly sentences and tongue-twisters using alliteration (a group of

words that all begin with the same sound) e.g. Sid slipped on Sam’s salad

sandwich).

Encourage your child to rehearse their sentence out loud before they

write it down. Also encourage them to punctuate their sentences with

capital letters and full stops.

Don’t focus on their mistakes; praise them for what they have written.

If a tricky word has been used in an interesting way, this should be

praised even if it is spelled incorrectly.

Remember, it is difficult to get everything right when you are learning!

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Let your child/children write part of your shopping list and then let

them be responsible for carrying the list and for finding certain items in

the shop.

After making a cake or doing a craft activity or even playing a game, get

your child/children to write instructions for someone to follow.

Make up fun ways to remember how to spell difficult words:

e.g. for the words: ‘would, could and should’ we say “oh you lucky duck”

for the ‘ould’ part of the word.

e.g. for the word ‘because’ we say “big elephants can always understand

small elephants.”

e.g. ‘what’ has a hat and ‘when’ has a hen.

Play ‘I Spy’ and ‘Hangman’ because these encourage the use of sounds

and spellings.

Help and encourage your child/children to learn their weekly spellings.

Practise them little and often.

Encourage your child/children to complete their homework on time –

take an interest in what they are doing and always praise effort.

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CONFIDENT WRITERS

Your child could write to their favourite author on the internet (most

authors have a blog now).

Write invitations, cards, messages, etc.

Write information pages or make booklets about a hobby or interest

e.g. dinosaurs, sporting heroes, pop stars.

Write a holiday diary to share with relatives and friends.

Make sure that your child/children have a comfortable place to work

and exciting writing materials.

Have a dictionary at home so that they can check spellings.

Encourage your child to use a thesaurus to find alternative words.

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After your child/children have produced any written homework ask

them to read it through and check for mistakes, then you read it and talk

about it with them.

Keep reading to your child even though they may already be a good

reader as this allows them to hear different vocabulary and different

ways/styles of writing so that they can ‘magpie’ these ideas.

Encourage your child to use a wide range of sentence structures and

punctuation. For example

Can they start a sentence with a fronted adverbial? In the playground,

Can they start with a verb? Running down the road, John…

Can they use a semi-colon in their sentence? Some children like football;

others like rugby.

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ENCOURAGING LESS CONFIDENT WRITERS

Praising and valuing your child’s/children’s writing is very important. You

will need to support them when they write and talk through their ideas

with them first.

There is a lot to think about when you are writing: spelling, handwriting,

sentences, punctuation to name but a few! It can be very frustrating to

think about all these as well as the ideas. Help your child/children go over

these elements after they have got their ideas down. Encourage sounding

out and remind them of the high frequency words that they should

already know.

Give your child a real purpose for writing:

cards or invitations

an email to a friend or relation

a letter to an author about their book – often author’s will write

back

a review of a book which could be uploaded to Amazon

the weekly shopping list

a letter to a neighbour.

Be a role model – get caught writing.

Remember that writing does not have to be lengthy all the time and that

it is not boring! Writing for real purposes and situations means more to

the children and they find it more rewarding, interesting and above all

FUN!

Finally, enjoy writing together.

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DEVELOPING GOOD HANDWRITING TECHNIQUES

Why is it important that my child has a good pencil/pen grip?

Children are taught to develop a fluent and consistent style of handwriting. We ensure that children have regular opportunities to practise holding their pencil/pen correctly and to develop letter formation and joins between letters, in order that they can develop their own individual fluent style of handwriting. The way a child grips the pencil/pen will affect the quality, speed and flow of their handwriting and it is very important that every child is able to write nearly and legibly.

What is the correct technique for holding a pencil/pen correctly? The following steps can be taught to ensure the 3 finger grip is used for holding a pen or pencil correctly: The pen or pencil should be help with the middle finger resting underneath the pencil and the first finger and thumb on top – this is called a ‘tripod grip’.

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The pen or pencil should be held about one to three centimetres from the writing tip, so that there is control over its movement. The grip should be relaxed, without pressing too hard on the page Ideally, your child should be sitting upright, not hunched over paper. It is also helpful to angle the piece of paper to the right or left, depending on which hand your child is using. The hand should be holding the pencil at an angle of about 60 degrees. The ‘non writing’ hand should be used to hold the paper still, so the writing arm is free to move. Please note that these steps are only a suggested guide. If your child has already established their own neat style of handwriting using their preferred pen grip, there is no need for them to make any changes.

What if my child is left handed?

If your child is left handed they may require a little extra support to develop the techniques needed to compensate for the fact that they must push rather than pull it (like a right handed person). Also, if the hand covers what has been written the left-handed writer will have to stop more frequently to review the content of what they have written.

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