5 Days of Teaching Savvy Writing Skills

Teaching Savvy Writing Skills

For the next five days, I will be writing short sweet tips to help the homeschool parent teach their children savvy writing skills.  These entries will be simple yet extremely helpful in getting your child to write with creativity and effectively use correct grammar.  So…let’s get started!

On this first day of Savvy Writing Skills, I want to focus on getting your child’s creative juices flowing through visually stimulating their brain to think in contexts way beyond the basic question of “how do you see this picture”.  One way we help our children to venture into the land of using good descriptive words—otherwise known as adjectives—is to introduce them to sample works that have many varying aspects of colors, feelings, and activities. 

These pictures should reflect something meaningful in society.  Whether it is a fluffy black and white Pomeranian resting quietly on a lawn, with children running to and fro in the background while being sprinkled with cool droplets of water from the water hose in which they are supposed to be glazing their mother’s flower garden, or simply a wrinkled, withered, and worn older lady rocking gently in her paint-cracked porch rocker in the evening sun with her piercing eyes darting straight at the camera-person’s lens, we should make certain our children are viewing intriguing materials.

Now, you may wonder why I wrote such a long—long—long sentence in the above paragraph.  Well, it was only get you to understand the importance of the SETTING in a piece of work.  We should help our children to pull out fascinating, unusual, and interesting data in the sample picture which our children will be writing.  Certain questions come to mind when I think of good solid ideas for formulating ideas of good writing prompts.  Make sure that upon your child answering the questions, you encourage them to complete each listed item.  A simple yes, no, or a one word answer is not sufficient to help them to write effective papers.5  They are as follows:

1.     What do you see in this picture? (The children should name at least five special aspects of the picture and write them in a notebook for further reference upon beginning writing the paper.)

2.     What colors stand out to you in this picture, and what do those colors represent to you in your mind? (Once again, a list of five special issues concerning color should be written down in their notebook.  Even if the colors are used twice or more, it is OK as long as the child has found special meaning to the color each time it is listed.)

3.     How does this picture make you feel? (The list of answers needs to be at least three items.)

4.     What are the different situations going on in the picture? (The list should be as long as needed. With each situation, the student should look for specific details.)

5.     Now, Have your children THROW out descriptive words to explain what they see, feel, and can imagine the things that might happen next in the picture. (Make a list of adjectives that help describe the picture in DETAIL.)

After all of the questions have been answered allow your child to review the information.   Tomorrow, I we will begin formulating a writing method and organization tactics to help your child “ease” into effective and savvy writing!

Dana Adams

Technical Writing Committee at American Public University Systems


If you would like to search through ALLLL the other informative participants in our 5 Day Blog Hop, check out the Homeschool Crew's blog page!