5 Tips To Teach Essay Writing To Your Children

Writing is one of the crucial skills for young kids because it’s an important part of everyone’s education. However, schools often don’t provide students with enough practice time to help children master writing. Students need to write essays all the time, but they don’t get enough training to learn how to write good essays. Fortunately, if you see that your child struggles with writing, you can help them.

Nobody knows your kids better than you, and you know how difficult a transition to high school, college, and university can be. If you want to make sure that your child will succeed in the future, you should make sure that they are well-prepared. Essay writing requirements will only become more and more strict so the writing process will also become more difficult.

Without a doubt, good writing skills are useful in adult life. Besides, they may help your child win a college scholarship when the time comes to enroll. Also, it will probably save you money that you would otherwise spend on scholarship application essay writing services to help your child get into the college of their choice. It’s important to explain the importance of writing to your kids and to provide them with the necessary help early on.

When your children are young, they still have some time to perfect their writing skills so it’s important not to waste time and to focus on effective training. Here are the five actionable tips to help your child become a better writer.

1.  Choose a subject or topic

First of all, your child should learn to choose topics for essays. Quite often, students get a topic assigned by the teacher so they don’t have an opportunity to choose a topic that is really interesting for them. Although choosing an interesting subject can be simple, your child should also know what kinds of topics are good for essays.

For example, if a topic is too broad, it will be impossible to cover it properly in a short essay. In this case, a good solution is to narrow down the topic and focus on its particular aspect. Teach your kids to choose topics that are easier to research and explain the importance of choosing unique topics.

2.  Define the purpose

Every essay should have its purpose. Of course, the main purpose might be to get a good mark, but an essay should also have an underlying general idea and an ultimate goal. For example, the purpose of an essay can be to spread awareness and to educate readers on a certain subject. An essay can also be intended to start a discussion or to provide a unique opinion.

The purpose of the essay determines many important details, such as the overall tone of writing, word choice, etc. It’s also important to consider the purpose of writing to provide clear guidelines for your child to follow. It will be much easier for your child to write if you help them set a clear direction and explain what they should look for.

3.  Focus on the basic writing skills

Before your child actually starts to write essays, it’s important to train the basic writing skills and focus on the main elements of writing. For instance, you should teach your kids grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If these elements are overlooked, your child won’t be able to produce good essays, no matter how great their ideas are.

Make sure to help your kids with grammar and spelling. You can teach them to use various spell checkers, but keep in mind that such programs are never perfect. A computer cannot understand the context of writing so it will only detect the most obvious mistakes. Therefore, we recommend that you read your child’s writing and help them fix mistakes.

4.  Teach your child to write outlines

Although teachers usually tell their students about the importance of outlines, many students overlook outlining when working on their essays. Without an outline, however, the writing process becomes even more stressful because your child needs to think not only about the content but also about the structure.

An outline helps plan the overall structure of a paper, and it also serves as a logical roadmap for the argument. In an outline, one can sort different ideas and facts by priority and think of what information should be presented in each particular paragraph. Of course, an outline can be more or less specific, but it always helps get started and figure out what the final result should look like.

The traditional essay structure implies writing an introduction, body, and conclusion. Many kinds of essays are based on this structure. Given that essays are usually relatively short, including more sections makes no sense, anyway. The introduction should start with a catchy and short hook, and then it should introduce the topic.

Usually, it makes sense to write the introduction when the rest of the essay is ready because the introduction often ends with a thesis statement that should reflect the entire essay’s main idea. When the main part of the essay is ready, it’s much easier to summarize it in a thesis statement and write an impressive introduction.

In a five-paragraph essay, the body section should contain three paragraphs. The structure of each paragraph mimics the structure of the whole essay. Every paragraph should begin with an introductory sentence, and then present one of the key points. The paragraph may end with a concise summary of the key point or a transition to the next key point that will be presented in the next paragraph.

Finally, the conclusion should summarize the whole essay and wrap it up. For example, a conclusion is a great place to reflect on the topic in a more general context. Another good approach is to end an essay with a relevant question that readers have to answer.

5.  Encourage reading

Such skills as reading and writing are closely related. However, if your child doesn’t want to read classic literature, it doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to write good essays. It’s important to always encourage reading, and it’s also important to choose reading materials that can actually be useful for your child.

For example, a great solution is to read examples of well-written essays on relevant topics. This way, your child will be able to understand what is expected from them when they’re asked to write an essay at school. Good sample essays can provide your child with some inspiration and ideas on phrasing and structuring.

Wrapping Up

Educators always require children to write many essays on different topics. However, it doesn’t mean that students always get the necessary training so the writing process is often associated with a lot of stress. Follow our tips to help your child learn to write essays, and don’t forget that practice makes perfect.