This month, we’ve discussed building foundational writing skills at home and listed 5 helpful resources for teaching writing. In this post, I’d like to talk about creative writing for homeschoolers.
Creative writing is in many ways an extension of childhood imaginative games, transferred to paper or computer. All young children enjoy pretending to be someone else or imagining a world different from the one that’s familiar to them. As they get older, some channel their imagination into art, others into acting, and yet others into writing.
If your child expresses interest in creating their own stories, characters, and fictional worlds, what can you do to help them develop their creative writing skills?
First, and most important, is to cultivate love of books. I know I always begin with this point, but that’s because it’s so crucial to many aspects of education. In order for a child to get comfortable writing their own stories they need to enjoy and appreciate stories written by others. They need to feel at home in the literary world. All good writers are first and foremost avid readers.
As an aside, a struggling reader can still grow into a creative writer. If good books are beyond their present reading level, they can listen to audiobooks or – my all-time favorite – listen to books read aloud by the parent. I have a teenage daughter with dyslexia who is now growing into a writer, even though it took her a while to become a fluent reader.
Another technical point: children don’t need to be proficient in the mechanics of writing in order to write stories. Young children, who are still having trouble writing and spelling legibly, can come up with their own stories and characters and ask a parent or an older sibling to help them write them down.
In fact, encouraging your child to tell stories orally goes a long way in helping them become a writer later on. These days, with the proliferation of technology, your child can also use speech-to-text technology to record their stories and share them with family and friends.
With an older child, you can help them develop their creative writing skills by discussing the elements of a story, different genres, and literary devices. Read books together, or discuss books you’ve both read, and notice what the author did especially well.
You can also provide your child with writing prompts. Vary them to cover different aspects of writing. If you enjoy writing yourself, you can both write simultaneously, using the same writing prompt, and then share your work and discuss it.
While it is a good idea to start small, with short stories, some pre-teens and teens already have a whole novel floating around their imagination that they are eager to put down on paper. That’s wonderful and should certainly be encouraged. Some famous writers began their writing careers as teens.
You can provide some resources for your novel writer to help them organize their thoughts. Then encourage them to write their first draft. Likely, they will have moments of frustration, when they feel ready to give up. That’s when they’ll need your gentle support and encouragement. Writing is fun, but it’s also hard work! One of my favorite sayings is that any masterpiece is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Your child might need reminders of that when the going gets tough.
If your child perseveres and finishes the first draft, you can celebrate together. And yet, let your child know that a first draft is only the beginning. Novel writers tend to spend more time on revision than on writing the first draft. You can provide your child with resources on editing and revision. And of course, your can read their first draft and provide your own feedback.
Next week, we can discuss some helpful resources for your creative writer. Meanwhile, enjoy the process!
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