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Writing Beside Them

Four short lessons for helping a child write: hold the pencil and start at the top, one line a day, the page you write together, and spelling that grows.

Spark & Whetstone · sparkwhetstone.org/learn/writing-beside-them · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Answers are at the end, so you can try each question first.

Lesson 1. Hold the pencil, start at the top

Most letters begin at the top and go down. Round letters like c, a, d and o start near the top and curve back to the left, counter-clockwise. A child who learns this early writes faster later.

Tracing on a screen helps a child know the shape and the order of the strokes. Forming letters well still wants a pencil and paper: the pressure, the grip, and the lines on the page.

InkPals, TinyLetters and LetterLoops all print a practice strip for the letter on screen. Use the strip at the table.

Question. Your child writes "d" by drawing the stick first, then the circle. What do you show them?

  1. Write it bigger, so the stick and circle are clear.
  2. That is fine; any order of strokes works for d.
  3. Start with the circle, like a c, then the stick.

Say it back. In your own words: why does the order of the strokes matter?

Lesson 2. One line a day

A daily sheet is small on purpose: one line about today. "We saw a fox." Small is how a habit starts, and a child can see a week of lines grow.

Keep the sheet in one place, at the same time of day. Let the child choose what to write about. If they want to draw instead, a drawing with one word under it counts.

JotPals keeps a daily line on the phone, but a sheet on the fridge works as well. Nobody marks it.

Question. Your child says they have nothing to write today. What helps most?

  1. Give them a bigger topic, like "My summer holiday", to fill the page.
  2. Put the sheet away for a week until they want to write again.
  3. Ask one small question: "What was the best part of lunch?"

Say it back. In your own words: why keep the daily line so small?

Lesson 3. The page you write together

Your child says the words; you write them down, exactly as they say them. Then read the page back together, pointing at each word. They see their own words become print.

This shared page lets a child compose a story longer than they can yet write by hand. Composing and handwriting are different skills, and here they get to do the first one in full.

Hang the page up. A kitchen-table page is something they made, not a worksheet.

Question. While you write down your child's story, they say "and the dog runned away". What do you write?

  1. Nothing until they say it correctly.
  2. Exactly what they said.
  3. "The dog ran away", and tell them the right word.

Say it back. In your own words: what does a child practise when you write their words down for them?

Lesson 4. Spelling that grows

A young writer spells by sound: "KT" for cat, then "KAT", then "cat". Each step shows which sounds they can hear, and spelling by sound is a normal stage on the way to spelling right.

Don't correct every word. Pick one word that matters to them — their friend's name, a word they use a lot — and show them that one.

Write beside them. When you write your own note at the same table, they see writing is something grown-ups do too.

Question. Your six-year-old writes "I lik my dg". What does it show?

  1. They hear most of the sounds in the words.
  2. They need a list of spelling words to learn by heart.
  3. They are not ready to write yet and should wait a year.

Say it back. In your own words: what does spelling by sound tell you about a child?

At the table: Write beside them

Players: a grown-up and a child. You'll need: two pencils and two sheets of paper.

  1. Sit side by side, each with a sheet.
  2. Each writes one line about today.
  3. Read your lines to each other.
  4. Choose one word from the child's line to look at together.

Answers

  1. Start with the circle, like a c, then the stick. — Starting d like a c keeps it apart from b, which starts with the stick. The order is what stops the two getting mixed up.
  2. Ask one small question: "What was the best part of lunch?" — A small question gives a small line, which is the whole point. A big topic makes the blank bigger.
  3. Exactly what they said. — The page is their composing, in their words. Grammar comes back later, in talk; correcting mid-story stops the story.
  4. They hear most of the sounds in the words. — They wrote most of the sounds they heard. That is the stage before conventional spelling, and it is on track.