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Teaching children to write sentences


How to Teach Children Learning to Write Sentences – Play of the Wild

Learning to write sentences can be challenging for children, so in this post, we will look at ideas to help teach children to write a sentence. Learning to write is a long process that starts with learning the basics such as understanding what letters, words and sentences are. Once children have learned how to put together letters to make words, they can begin to put words together to make sentences.

The following activities are ways adults can help children begin to think in sentences (orally compose) and begin to write them down.

Sentence Cut Out

When children first start learning to write, they find it difficult to put their ideas together into a sentence. They may also have difficulty remembering their sentence before they finish writing it. The result can be a random jumble of words. To help children practise composing sentences and holding their ideas in their head, they can practice putting together sentence cut-outs.

To make sentence cut-outs – children will need to think of the sentence, say it out loud, and count each word on their fingers. Then, children can practice saying the sentence out loud again on each finger to make sure that they remember the same sentence. This activity helps them think about how to form a sentence and then practice holding the sentence in their head so they can remember how to write it. An adult then writes out the sentence for them and cuts out each word. Then the child has to put the words back together in the right order and stick it onto the page.

Sentence Stems

Sentence stems can help children practising forming and writing sentences by giving them part of the sentence and only having to think about and write the end of the sentence. For children just beginning to write, you might have a sentence stem written out for the child such as ‘I like ________’ or ‘I went _______’. Then children can fill in the remaining part of the sentence. You may also want to provide children with some word banks (see below). Once children have finished writing the sentence, they can re-read it to check it makes sense. This is good practice for writing to ensure they proofread their work and make sure what they write can be understood by others.

Scaffold Lines

Using scaffolding lines helps children practice planning and writing sentences. To do this, children will need to plan a sentence by saying it to themselves, and then count the words on their fingers as they repeat it to themselves. Once children know how many words are in their sentence, they can draw a line for each word. To start, an adult can write out the lines on the paper with lines of different sizes depending on the length of the word. Eventually, children can draw lines in for themselves.

This activity is excellent for children who need help remembering their sentences and ensuring they write something that others can understand. It builds skills similar to the ‘sentence cut-out’ activity, but it is more challenging as it requires children to write it themselves while also holding the sentence in their head.

*Say the sentence, count the words, write the lines for it. This is like the Elkonin boxes of sentence construction.

Vocabulary Banks or Word Banks

Vocabulary banks are important to help children become independent writers. Whenever I have my class writing around any book or topic, I create a vocabulary bank (with images). Word banks help children with tricky words that they wouldn’t know or be able to sound out using their phonics (segment) to spell out. Giving them vocabulary banks can free up children to focus on constructing interesting sentences and checking that they make sense, rather than worrying about the spelling. Vocabulary banks are helpful for children just starting to write sentences, as well as stronger writers. They can also help children use more exciting vocabulary by assisting children in using language that may be new to them.

The-Way-Back-Home-word-matDownload

This is an example word mat for children to use when writing about a book.

Model Writing

Modelled writing is a great way to help demonstrate to children how to write and shows them the processes writers go through to write a sentence. When model writing in front of a group of children, you show children all the thought processes that go on when writing a sentence. It involves a lot of thinking out loud. To start, you can start saying your sentence out loud, correcting yourself if needed and then counting how many words your sentence has on your fingers as you repeat it. Then you can talk about what you need to do to start a sentence, a capital letter. As you write, you can model using phonics sounds to spell out words or using the word mats to help write more difficult words. It would be helpful if you also pointed out placing spaces (finger space) between each word that you write and punctuation at the end of your sentence. Once you have written it, then show children how you re-read the sentence to check that it makes sense and fix any errors. All of these processes should be said out loud in front of children. This way, they can see what you are thinking and doing to write a sentence successfully.

Reading

While reading isn’t a writing activity, it will help children’s writing to develop. Reading lots of books with children will help them develop language and expand their vocabulary, as well as an understanding of how sentences and stories are structured. It is also an opportunity to be exposed to different words so that they recognise what they look like when they use them for writing.

Conclusions – How to Teach Children Learning to Write a Sentence

I hope that these activities to help children learning to write sentences are helpful! Keep in mind that children need lots of opportunities to practice over time, so a little bit of practice often will help them learn.

How to Teach Children to Write a Sentence – Learning to Write Sentences

Teaching Kids How to Write a Sentence

Welcome back to Preschool and Kindergarten Writing Lessons, a 10 week writing series between The Measured Mom and me.  If you are just joining us, feel free to visit the post that includes all the links to our series so far.

Today, I’d like to talk a little about teaching kids how to write a sentence (or sentences). For young children who are not ready to write or do not know their letters/letter sounds, I recommend using dictation. As children grow in their literacy knowledge, there comes a point in which you can share the pen with them, writing a message or sentences together. Both dictation and sharing the pen are GREAT opportunities to model how to write sentences.

As children continue to progress as writers, they may want to be a little more independent in their writing time. But they may still need support in writing. This is where “magic lines” come into play!

 

Teaching Kids how to Write a Sentence with “Magic Lines”

Just recently, NJoy had an authentic reason to write: his sister’s birthday. He asked if I would help him write a card that he could give to her (talk about melting my heart). I asked him to draw a picture for her on the card first. Many times, kids can use their own drawings as a springboard for writing. But he insisted that he wanted to write first, so we did. (Tip: Be flexible!)

  • I asked him what message he wanted to tell his sister. He said, “Happy Birthday to you, M____ (her name)!”
  • I repeated the sentence aloud and then said, “We’re doing to draw some ‘magic lines’, one line for every word you want to say. That way you’ll know where to write your words.”
  • We said the sentence together one more time slowly and counted each word as we said it. (Note that the concept of spoken word may be difficult for some children. For example, a word like yesterday, may be counted as two words yester-day.)

  • After we counted each word, I drew a line representing where each word should go. We had a great discussion about some words sounding longer than others, (based on syllables and/or the number of sounds in the words) so the length of my lines represented the length of the words. Talk about developing an ear for print!

 

  • He wrote his message, using the pre-drawn lines. (I helped him sound his way through “Happy” and “Birthday”. I held him accountable for the words to and you because those have been sight words we have studied before.)

 

  • Then he drew his birthday picture as only NJoy can, including his bird friends.
  • He set the card beside her bed, ready for her birthday to come the next day (what a sweet big brother!)

 

 

For More Writing Ideas for Kids, Visit:

  • Preschool & Kindergarten Writing Lessons
  • Roll-a-Sentence: Write a Complete Sentence {with free printable}
  • Roll-a-Silly Sentence: Write a Complete Sentence {with free printable}
  • Simple Writing Lessons: a 12-week writing series for 1st and 2nd graders

Follow This Reading Mama’s board Writing Ideas for Kids on Pinterest.

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How to teach a child to write essays

March 19, 2017 Education

The ability to write essays is very important not only for good grades at school, but also for the overall creative development of the individual. However, in the lessons of the Russian language and literature, it is impossible for a child to be taught the rules for writing a good essay. To develop this skill, parents and teachers must act in a special way.

During the lessons, children can be taught about highlighting a topic, drawing up a plan, respecting composition, and so on. However, teachers will not say anything about the most important thing - how to create a text that has artistic value. Many spontaneously developed methods for improving such skills are completely ineffective. So, for example, one study says that corrections and notes that a teacher leaves in an essay when checking do not achieve their goal, students most often simply ignore them.

However, this does not mean that parents and teachers are powerless. The formation of writing skills is influenced by various factors, remembering which you will be able to help your child find his own creative style.

1. Interest

This is the key to success not only in writing essays, but also in any other field of activity. If a person is interested in what he does, the skill will come by itself. This is not about mercantile interest, the process of activity itself should be regarded by a person as significant and exciting.

This implies the development of a certain system of values ​​in the child, in which creativity, self-expression, intellectual work occupy a dominant position.

An essay is not just a presentation of thoughts. This is the result of creative activity.

A child should be brought up with reverence for the art of writing, great writers should be models for him that deserve respect. And most importantly, he must understand why they deserve respect. That is, he must be aware of the aesthetic value of literature, the beauty of language.

For example, research suggests that it is important to show the student that one long sentence sounds better than several short ones. It is necessary to teach him to combine proposals, to tell him by what means this can be achieved. The same goes for other artistic aspects of language.

2. Respect for Literature

For this, the child, of course, must read. But this does not mean that he should be forced to swallow the entire school curriculum - this often only achieves the opposite goal. Many mistakenly believe that the more a person reads, the better he will write. It's not like that at all. Even from the point of view of vocabulary enrichment: in order for new words to enter the active lexicon, they need to be used regularly. To enrich the active lexicon, the technique with the provision of a list of new words and the task of using them in an essay is much more effective.

Literature should not be read "because it was asked." The school curriculum is designed more for the quantitative consumption of the works of the classics, and not for their qualitative study.

In order for a person to have an interest and understanding of the artistic value of a work, he should not experience pressure from outside.

An individual approach would be much more effective: find out what genre the child likes and focus in this direction. If, for example, he likes science fiction, and Pushkin, to whom he has no soul at all, is taught, it would be more correct to open the literary world to him based on his interests. For example, offering a child a science fiction classic like Gibson or Lem, discussing the issues that are embedded in these books, allowing him to express himself and discuss topics of interest to him.

3. Motivation to think

This does not mean that the school curriculum should be forgotten: it can also arouse a certain interest with the help of teaching methods. At our school, everyone was madly in love with literature, because the teacher always taught lessons without referring to textbooks. She could devote almost a whole quarter to one work. But on the other hand, she analyzed it in such a way that everyone was involved in the discussion process. She expressed a point of view that went against the critical "standards" and provoked us into a discussion.

So, we had to read "Tom Sawyer" as a story about an eccentric hooligan, and the novel "Anna Karenina" told about a hysterical girl who needed psychological help. Homework assignments were appropriate: “Do you think Andrei Bolkonsky is a spiritually complex person, and not a parasite satiated with the joys of aristocratic life? Then read such and such a chapter and try to find at least some evidence of your point of view. And I don’t need to read the paragraph about the sky: we have all seen the sky and know what it is.” She spoke sharply and categorically, not at all "school-like", but that is why we wanted to read and think about what we read. The parent himself can arrange such preparation for the lessons.

There are standard steps in writing an essay:

  • highlighting a topic;
  • drawing up a plan;
  • writing an introduction with a presentation of the topic;
  • writing the main body of an essay;
  • conclusion with conclusions.

This is a completely logical structure for working on any essay, which, in fact, reflects the correct and consistent thinking. And it needs to be taught, but it is not necessary to start from it. Forcing a child to imitate dry models, curbing his creative energy, forcing him to play by someone else's rules, you can hardly arouse interest in him.

It will be more effective if he gets complete freedom of expression and the opportunity to speak on a topic of interest to him without restrictions. And in the process of writing an essay, you can correct it or give advice on how to better organize the text. The child will master the structure, but will do it on his own experience.

4. Adult Imitation

Research has shown that full monitoring of the essay writing process, real-time student assistance, will yield better results than the common technique of leaving the student alone with the paper and then making corrections to the finished result.

You want to teach your child to think and speak like an adult. Believe me, he wants to learn it too.

But for this to happen, your thinking must be in constant contact with his own.

Often people first identify with a certain image, and only after that they acquire its qualities. So, after graduating with honors from an art school, a person thinks: "I am a talented artist." And only then, after many years of practice, his paintings will begin to correspond to the title that he bestowed upon himself in his youth.

Every child wants to be an adult. And if you manage to convince him that being an adult means being able to think non-trivially and beautifully express his train of thought, then he will begin to show his adulthood in an appropriate way. For this to happen, compositions must initially be written by you together.

5. Constant practice

In general, in order to learn how to coherently express your thoughts, this point alone is enough. If a person does something constantly, he does it better and better. Even with a complete reluctance to write, but with strict supervision of homework and constant practice, the child will be able to cope with essays and get good grades.

But what is the point and cost of such an approach? Most people who had a C in chemistry at school have probably never reproached themselves for childish sloppiness in their lives. Because this chemistry would not be useful to them in any case.

School grade is not an indicator of success in life. In no case should you inspire the child to the opposite, otherwise in the future he will also strive for artificial goals created by someone else, without finding his own creative energy.

How to teach a child to write an essay

The world of literature introduces children to bright characters, teaches ideas about good and evil, develops imagination. Each book is a new impression and experience. But children are not only grateful readers, they are also writers. Getting your thoughts right on paper is not easy. Therefore, writing skills need to be learned from school. For this purpose, the program provides for essays (based on a picture, questions, key words, on literary topics), presentations, miniatures.

Not everyone has the ability to write beautifully. But this can be learned. In order for school essays to work well without the help of the Internet and adults, the child will have to work hard. The task of attentive parents is to be there at first, to help overcome possible difficulties and awaken interest in literary creativity.

Why is it difficult for children to write essays?

Children write their first compositions in 2-3 grades. When issuing a task, not every teacher is able to explain what methods and rules should be followed when performing it. Hence the first stresses and unwillingness of the child to start work. Usually behind the inability to write an essay lie:

  • fantasy problems;
  • weak figurative thinking;
  • ignorance of the topic;
  • lack of ideas about the clear structure of the text.

Parents should not turn their backs on a child's requests for help or write papers for them. It is important to be there and explain how the essay is written. Having mastered the basic skills, in the future the child will learn to write good texts. In order for them to be literate, fantasy, imagination, and speech should be developed. This will help good books, travel, new experiences.

The first composition - together!

Essay - a presentation of one's own thoughts on a topic given by the teacher. It demonstrates knowledge in a particular issue, the ability to narrate, describe, express a personal view consistently, convincingly and competently.

A sign of good work and mental maturity of the author is a clear structure, correct literary language, depth of content. This is not easy to achieve at first. That is why younger students need the help of their parents.

The choice of topic and story structure is the first thing to discuss with the child. You can make a cheat sheet, where the main stages of working on the text will be spelled out:

  1. Heading - words that reflect the content of the work as a whole.
  2. Introduction - introduces the topic of the essay, brings the reader to the main part. You can start the text with the words of the narrative "I want to tell you ...", the question "do you know ...", the definition "happiness is ...".
  3. Main part - reveals the main idea of ​​the work and consists of several theses. All paragraphs and sentences in the text should be connected with each other using the words "if", "therefore" and others.
  4. Conclusion - summing up and conclusions.

Working with a draft and a poor vocabulary

First, you need to sketch out key phrases and line them up logically - this will be the initial plan. Then, adhering to this plan and structure of the essay, the child will be able to write the text in a draft version. Now it remains to check the literacy and rewrite the work in a clean copy. During the test, another problem may arise - the student's poor vocabulary. If so, at the stage of preparation for work, you need to draw up colorful portraits of heroes or descriptions of objects that appear in the text.

The child should be taught to work with a draft, where he can play with images, expressions, phrases. Be sure to use a spelling dictionary that will allow you to find synonyms, correct errors.

Advice of professional teachers

Evaluating the student's essays, the teacher determines the level of knowledge of the literary language, the breadth of outlook, the ability to give an objective assessment of events, to draw their own conclusions. The technique of teaching this depends on age:

  • Primary school children should be taught in a playful way. You can agree to write sentences in turn, discussing each of them together. Over time, it will be easier for the child to express his thoughts, to fantasize. He will be able to write interesting, light and structured texts.
  • Help for high school students is to discuss the details of work with adults. You can talk about the introduction, main text and conclusion, listen to each other's ideas, find a compromise. Senior students can independently analyze their work, evaluate their style, and make adjustments.

Competent help from parents

Writing skills remain with the child for life. Developing his literary abilities, parents should remember the following: