Spelling and grammar, combined with general vocabulary knowledge, are an important part of writing. To be able to have great spelling and grammar skills practice is essential, however, there are some other ways to encourage children to improve their English skills.
How to help students develop their writing skills:
- Encourage reading.
Those with good grammar and spelling skills tend to be avid readers, this is because they are usually exposed to a variety of vocabulary, plus different contexts and writing styles. Encouraging children to read from a young age will enable them to learn different words, how to spell those words, and how different words are used within a sentence. For instance, if they read blogposts that talk about the difference of says and said, they might learn about the subject-verb agreement and verb-tense usage. Needless to say, reading will also introduce children to punctuation and different sentence structures.
- Encourage drafts of work
There can often be a lot of pressure to start with a blank page and write a great sentence, so it is important to show children that sometimes it can take a few drafts to get the perfect sentence or paragraph. Teaching children the process of brainstorming and putting ideas down on paper and revising any typos and errors will help them feel less worried about messing up. This process will allow students to openly explore different structures, words and punctuation that may be better within their writing.
After all, practice does make perfect.
- Ask parents to help outside of school.
Whilst primary school students don’t need to partake in heavy revision, it is still important for them to continue their learning at home. Learning information in different environments can help to connect it to different situations and can help with the absorption of that information.
Parents can encourage their children to do simple tasks such as reading before bed, or perhaps buy their child a journal so that they can write freely and creatively at home, which will allow them to unleash creativity. As an educator, you can provide parents with resources to help their children out too. Create fun workbooks for the kids, get them printed as booklets (click for source of where that can be done), and hand these out for them to work on at home.
- Make lessons fun and varied
It’s common for adults to get bored when tasks get repetitive, and this is even more likely with young children. They get distracted easily and often find repetitive or long-winded lessons dull and unengaging.
Activities such as reading out loud in class and copying texts to learn form, structure and spelling are a great way to help with writing without having a lesson that is too full on.
There are also a wide variety of teaching tools and resources available online, perfect for planning a selection of lessons that are fun, engaging and varied. These resources focus on specific areas of English, allowing for structure as well as fun.