Our children are growing up in a world of emojis and abbreviations, reels and GIFs, in which writing is getting more and more scarce. Skills like typing and handwriting seem old school as many people simply use their thumbs on their phones or dictate messages. However, writing is still a skill that is useful and even necessary for our children to learn. Good writing will set them apart from their peers and serve them well for the rest of their lives.
Here are few reasons why we should encourage our children to learn to write and to write well.
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Why Children Need to Write Well
1. Communication
Writing is primarily about communication. In a world where much communication happens online via written words, clear communication is more important than ever. The written word lacks inflection and facial expressions (despite our attempts to replace these with emojis), so written communication needs to be much more clear than verbal. Our children must be able to clearly and concisely state their thinking in writing, whether for their classes or their work.
As Night Zookeeper notes, “By translating their thoughts into written words, young writers can practice the ability to effectively articulate their ideas, emotions, and needs. Effective communication helps children thrive in everyday life, socially and academically.”
For example, both my partner and I work full-time from home. While he has numerous phone meetings with his co-workers, I communicate with my clients primarily via email. My teenagers do much of their homework via Google classroom and often need to email their teachers about various assignments, missed classes, and more. Knowing how to write well is important for all of us.
Lisa Healy explains that “writing is an integral part of our lives. We use it on a daily basis (unlike that geometry you’re required to learn!). In fact, research has shown that the earlier adults encourage and support this skill in children, the more successful those children are as writers later in life. And isn’t that a good thing?”
2. Organization
We all have that friend who rambles all over the place when talking, adding “ums” and less savory words to every sentence, or going down rabbit trails of thought. In writing, that rambling is much more annoying. Our children need to learn to write clearly, to choose a topic and stick to it, whether they are emailing a boss or teacher about something or sharing their knowledge with a teacher or co-worker.
Writing is a way to organize our thoughts, to state what we know in a way that others can easily follow what we’re thinking. Written communication must be focused (such as a brief email), orderly (such as instructions on how to do something) and clear (any communication). One advantage of writing is that we can see all the words on the page and go back to edit what we’ve said for this clarity and order before sending or presenting it to someone.
While our kids may loathe writing 3-paragraph essays, this exercise teaches them to come up with a summary of their idea (topic sentence) and then provide proof, reasons or explanations for that idea (the three paragraphs). This organizational structure can be adapted to many other situations in life. While the 3-paragraph essay may feel unwieldy, it’s a bit like training wheels–a template for organizing our writing.
Night Zookeeper adds, “Good writers can articulate their ideas in a coherent and persuasive manner, which is highly valued in academic and professional settings.”
3. Logical Thinking
Language is not random. There are rules and patterns within all languages that help us communicate better. Recognizing these patterns helps children learn logic, as math, science and other aspects of life also follow rules and patterns. Knowing the rules of grammar can help our children write better, as they understand how a sentence should be organized and what makes a sentence better. Understanding English grammar and rules can also help children learn a second language, as other languages have other grammatical rules that are based on the same basic patterns of nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.
4. Memorization
Writing is a means of memorization as it engages more of our senses and the different ways we learn. When we are writing something down, we see the words on the page (visual) and also form them with our hands (kinesthetic). Most of us write more slowly than we read or speak, so writing forces us to slow down and think more. In this way, “Writing can help kids (and adults!) process their feelings, destress, and boost memory and creativity, while honing those communication and comprehension skills.”
5. Better Reading
Better writing skills also leads to better reading skills–and since our kids are communicating more via words, it’s important that they can read well too. Reading Rockets explains, “When we teach specific writing skills, their corresponding skills in reading improves. For example, teaching spelling results in improved word reading skills. Teaching sentence construction skills improves reading fluency. When we write about a text, it forces us to actively think about what we read, improving our understanding and comprehension. When we write about things that we’re learning in the classroom, such as a science experiment, we come to a better conceptual understanding of the material.”
How to Help Your Child Write Better
Maybe you already knew why writing is important for kids, and your struggle instead is that your kids don’t want to learn to write. Neither do mine (and I’m a writer!). Writing is, frankly, hard work. Whether our kids are writing by hand or on a computer, the act of writing itself takes time and practice to do well. Even if they find handwriting and typing easy, putting words together can daunt many students. (If I had a dime for the number of times I’ve heard, “I don’t know what to write,” I could buy myself a new computer.)
Here are some resources that may help your kids:
More Ideas for Encouraging Writing
Model writing (and reading) for your child. Let them see you writing emails or letters to family, creating grocery lists, etc. Talk about writing projects you’re doing for your own work or school.
Encourage your kids to keep a journal. Some kids prefer blank journals where they can write as much or as little as they want, while other kids may prefer dated journals with a small space to write just a couple sentences about each day. You could also start a mother-child or father-child journal that’s more like a letter between you two to encourage writing.
Help your child find a penpal, whether that’s a family member like grandparents or cousins or a child they meet in another country.
Help your child start a blog or find ways to publish their writing. Many magazines are open to child submissions. Your child may enjoy seeing their work in print or knowing that others are reading their words.
Suggest that your child write a story with another child. They can collaborate during playdates or write their story online together using a shared Google doc. Adding a social aspect to writing can make it more interesting.
What ideas would you add to this list? Do your children enjoy writing?
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