When
teaching writing, there are essentially four categories that
writing falls into. These are: descriptive writing, narrative writing,
informative writing, and persuasive writing. All require a bit different
thought process in building the sentences and paragraphs that will make up
the writing. Teaching writing to your child with these basic forms in mind
will give them the skills to communicate effectively throughout their
lifetime.
Let's
take a look at a brief description of these four skill sets.
Descriptive Writing – Just as it sounds. First begin with teaching your
child to write complete, grammatically accurate sentences. Using various
adjectives to describe something they can see or are familiar with. Build on
this newly acquired skill to then begin to concatenate these sentences into
paragraphs of describing people, places, things that they can see,
activities that that like. Work with teaching your child new and exciting
descriptive vocabulary and encourage them not to reuse the same type of
descriptive words and sentences.
Narrative
Writing – As your child's skill increases and them begin to gain confidence
and have fun with their descriptive writing have them do some journaling. Be
sure not to lose the descriptive skills as they add stories to their daily
journals. Remember, we are building on skills here, not just moving from one
to the next as you teach your child writing. Even as they write what they
did in their journals make sure they keep their descriptive skills sharp.
Informative Writing – Teach your child how to write helpful information on
something that they know how to do or have learned recently. Perhaps how to
be a more descriptive writer! With informative writing, detail is more in
focus, and clarity in what you are trying to get across. Have them write
about how to make a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or ideas on
keeping your toys organized.
Persuasive Writing – Probably more for somewhat older children, this teaches
your children how to write more thoughtful pieces explaining a position that
they have on a conversational topic or even controversial subject. The child
must work to explain the reasons for their thinking and positioning on a
topic.
Teaching writing is the development of the four basic skill
sets described above. With these tools in their writing tool belt your child
will be able to communicate effectively for a lifetime.
