The summer months are a great time to encourage journal writing. Even the most resistant writers will enjoy recording their daily adventures, especially if they are on vacation and visiting interesting places. Provide a special notebook for this and encourage them to chronicle the events of the day with good descriptions and pictures (these can be cut out from brochures or drawn) Remind them that this is the best way to remember these special days. Journal writing can become a favorite activity of children and teach them such skills as sequencing, using descriptive language and writing clearly.

If your little author is still hesitant, a great writing activity is to write a “progressive story” by having different members of the family take turns in creating the story. So you might start by writing an introductory sentence and then choose the next person to add the next part and so on. While these stories may get pretty silly, they certainly spark the creativity in most youngsters.

Playing guessing games with descriptions helps to develop a child’s ability to observe the world around them and accurately and creatively describe what they are seeing. In this game each person writes a description of a place, an object, or even a character in a book or movie and the other person has to guess who or what they are describing.

Story starters also provide an incentive for writing when the child has difficulty thinking of something to write. “It was a dark and stormy night” might conjure up some great stories written by flashlight in a camping tent.

Finding a special time to listen to the stories your child has written encourages them to write more. Asking questions helps them to learn to write more clearly.

One last suggestion is to write notes to your child so that you are modeling this way of communicating on a very personal level. Some parents include little love notes in lunches or write “good morning” notes with breakfast. Appreciate all written communication from your child and ignore the spelling mistakes. A nice letter to grandma or a favorite uncle and post cards sent to friends make writing a positive experience. Text messages have become a favorite form of communicating for the older child and hopefully enhance your child’s use of writing as a wonderful form of using language.