Homeschooling from the Heart

The following encouragement is some writing ideas that I recently emailed to a parent. I thought that there may be other parents who need some encouragement with their "reluctant" writers too. The following encouragement was taken from a Marilyn Hahn workshop on "Awesome Writing Strategies for the Reluctant Student". Enjoy!


P – Purpose
When was the last time we as adults wrote without a purpose? Probably when we were in school! As adults we usually write with a purpose. We write grocery lists, e-mails, journals, letters or cards, “To do” lists, reminder notes, stories or poetry if we’re feeling creative, blogs, etc. These are the reasons that Marilyn suggested why we all write:

T – to Tell something
R – to Request something
I – to Inform about something
P – to Persuade about something
E – to Explain something or to Encourage someone

All of these reasons to write require another person’s interaction.


P – People who care about kid’s writing
Find an audience. Marilyn suggests that 80% of your child’s writing should have some sort of audience – meaning that it should be sent outside of the home. Even a spelling test can have purpose if you have your child write at the top: “Dear Grandma, I’m writing this spelling test for YOU!” Then mark it, put it in an envelope, and mail it to Grandma.

When your child has an audience, editing starts to matter. Your child will want to write neatly, spell words correctly and reread and revise his/her own work.

Audiences can include: family members (make sure you train them to praise your kid’s writing and NOT point out the spelling errors) (smile), people who work in the church or the community, a friend or cousin or Sunday School teacher, the fireman, the police officer, the doctor, a favourite author or illustrator, the Prime Minister or the Queen (she always writes back!)

Use the yellow pages and let you child find people that he/she would like to write too. The people to write to are ENDLESS!

Here is the link with the queen’s address and some sample letters:
Writing to the Queen


P – Process and the Product
It is easy to get caught up in the rut of presenting children with a piece of 8 1/2” by 11” lined paper and asking them to write something. Marilyn says “Boring!”. Here are some of her ideas on how to spur writing on:

- Write on brown paper bags. Hole punch and then tie them together with a ribbon to create a paper bag book.
- Make the paper smaller. A post-it note looks a lot less intimidating than a piece of binder paper.
- For young writers use a piece of blank white paper rather than lined paper.
- Create an Author’s Gear Box - This is an investment but well worth it. Buy a compartment kit with the little drawers and shelves etc. Take your child shopping to Staples or Wal-Mart or the Dollar Store and let him/ her choose writing items to put in their Author’s Gear Box. Items may include: erasers, gel pens, colored pencils, stickers, binder rings, paper clips, paint, scissors, sticky notes, rad tacks, etc. The materials in the Author’s Gear Box are ONLY to be used when your child is writing.
- Use “Roget’s College Thesaurus” – (Grade 3 and onward) – Let your child look through the thesaurus and find words to create a really cool sentence, This can gradually increase to paragraphs and stories.
- Writing Poetry – Use “Scholastic Rhyming Dictionary” and use Shift F7 on the keyboard to provide a thesaurus. Look through old National Geographic magazines. Pull out a great picture. Have your child highlight up to 50 phrases (max. 4 words in length) in the written text about the picture. Cut the phrases out, arrange in a poetic order, glue onto the picture from the magazine – this is called a Found poem.
- Store your child’s writing in a plastic sheet protector. Immediately, the writing looks polished!


P- Passion
Capitalize on your child’s passion. Write about personal interests.


P – Partnership
This “P” is one of the most important but also one of the hardest. Marilyn suggests sitting shoulder to shoulder with your child and doing a similar writing assignment at the same time. In order to find time to do this, you can schedule “family writing time” into your week.