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This month, we will focus on writing in homeschooling. As with any other homeschool topic, teaching writing can and should be adjusted to your child’s unique strengths and needs. However, you can use these general guidelines as a starting point.
Good writers love books
The most important component of building writing skills is developing a love of the written word. Too often, this component is overlooked in favor of technicalities, such as sentence and paragraph structure. However, without an appreciation of the written word, your child won’t be motivated to learn the technicalities. And when motivation is lacking, the skills you are trying so hard to instill won’t stick. Instead, your efforts will backfire as your child begins to resent formal writing instruction.
Love of the written word is the foundation of good writing. It needs to be built first, before moving on to other components of writing. Likely, you’ve already been doing that by reading to your child. When we read to our children from a very early age, they develop positive associations with books. As our children get older, we can continue reading books aloud to them, even once they know how to read on their own. Much has been written about the benefits of reading aloud, which are beyond the scope of this post. If your child is not interested in writing, I highly recommend that you take a step back, set aside your writing curriculum, and focus on developing a love of books first.
Narration
Once your child enjoys reading, or being read to, you can ask them to tell you in their own words what the book or chapter you just read was about. In the Charlotte Mason homeschooling style, this is called narration. While beginners’ narration should be oral, it becomes a building block of writing, as children learn to express their thoughts clearly and coherently.
When your child gains experience with oral narration, they can progress to narration on paper. At first, it could consist of pictures with very little text. As the child’s skills grow, their narration should include more writing.
For more information on narration, please see:
- Overview of narration from Simply Charlotte Mason
- Video about the principles of narration from Charlotte Mason Plenary
- Book: Know and Tell: The Art of Narration by Karen Glass
Copy work
Once your child is able to write down all the letters, they can begin copy work. Another Charlotte Mason concept, copy work involves copying passages from books your child enjoys. Copy work is great for handwriting practice. It also serves as a building block in spelling and grammar. As children copy real texts, they develop an intuition for spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and other components of good writing.
Copy work can be done in parallel with narration. Your child can start small, copying only a few words or a sentence at a time, and then slowly increase the amount.
For more on copy work, please see:
- Beginner’s Guide to Copy Work from The Unlikely Homeschool
- Book: Copywork: A workbook collection of Aesop’s Fables for Children from Wildflower Press
- Book: Great Literature Copywork: Practice Cursive Handwriting with Excerpts from the Great Books by Ruth Lestina
Dictation
Once your child is proficient in copy work, they can begin dictation. Instead of copying text from a book, the child writes down text read to them, without looking at the text itself. Dictation has all the benefits of copy work, with the added benefit of the child having to rely on their memory and intuition for spelling and grammar.
For more on dictation, please see:
- What You Need to Know About How to Use Dictation from Heart-to-Heart Homeschooling
- Book: Homeschooling, simplified: Dictation: how to teach grammar, spelling, reading and almost all language arts in an easy alternative to the homeschool curriculum by Bonnie Landry
Formal writing
With the proper foundation and building blocks described above, your child can begin formal writing instruction. We will discuss homeschool writing curricula in an upcoming blog post.
Need more help with teaching writing in your homeschooling? Join us this month for a live session by Becky Ogden!
6 Things You Should Know About Teaching Writing as a Homeschooler
Tuesday, December 21st at 6 pm PST/7 pm MST/8 pm CST/9 pm EST
This live session is part of the 2021-2022 Homeschool Year series at Digital Homeschool Convention. Hope to see you there!
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