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Teachers want students to first have a love of words. At home parents should incorporate new words into their child's vocabulary. Play word games such as Boggle, Scrabble or Upwords. Put a magnetic poetry set on the refrigerator. Write small poems to the kids and they can write them back. Establishing this love of words from early childhood on will build the foundation for their success in writing later on.

Reading a lot and often is a key part of being a good writer. Read aloud to the child until the age in which they finally just completely say no which happens at about 7th-8th grade. This is where children learn vocabulary, cadence and a sense of what reads well and what doesn't.

When the child reaches the point that that there is a request for help on a school assignment, these are some concrete areas that teachers are looking for.

1)Establish the purpose of the assignment and the audience. Is this for a competition or just for the eyes of the teacher? Is the student trying to persuade, inform, or entertain?

2)Remember the rule of 5. Most paragraphs have five items: topic sentence, three main ideas and a concluding sentence. Plan out what those three ideas are before the child writes the paragraph. It is best if these are clearly separate ideas. If they muddy together at all when listing the main ideas, they will become more repetitive when the paragraph is written.

3)Drafting the paper. Try to not let your child be paralyzed by spelling and grammar errors in the first draft. The first draft should just be for ideas. Yes, it is nice to not have tons of spelling and grammar errors to clean up, but for many kids they equate writing with spelling and grammar and as a result their ideas suffer. Spelling and grammar have been the source of more writer's block in students than anyone can imagine.

4)Revising. This has been another great stumbling block for students. First of all most kids would like to turn in the first draft of their paper as a final draft. Not a good idea. Some areas to help make the writing better are to use a variety of words and to attempt to elevate their language. Look for vague dead words such as get, got, stuff, thing, and try to replace them with word s that are more colorful. Take a look at the point of view of the writing. Look at the pronouns being used in the sentences. Can specific nouns be used instead? Example: Our country-may be could be written as the United States or America. Pronoun overload can sometimes be the downfall of young writers and leads to vague writing.

5)Proofreading is last. If at all possible let the writing sit for awhile and then come back to it. The errors seem to pop off the page when you have fresh eyes.

6)Remember as parents not to take over the writing for the child. Praise them specifically not just "good job" type compliments. A better compliment would be, "_____ is really great word." Or "I like how you started this sentence with______." Specific praise is an asset; Empty praise is a detriment.

Writing can be hard work for kids and even intimidating. There are many kids who don't feel confident about their writing, so a child that is uncomfortable in this arena is not alone. As parents try to be a good example by conveying your own love of words. Writing is a lot like playing a sport. They just don't improve without practice. The more they do it, the better their writing will eventually be.

Learn more about this author, MJ Suttor.
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