7 Tips for Helping Your Child With Writing Assignments

Whether you’re having troubles motivating your 4th grader to write a short ‘How I spent my summer holidays’ essay, or dealing with an adolescent who has just flown the nest and is suffering from college papers, this article will shed the light on 7 effective tips to help your offspring tackle the challenge of composing. So let’s get it started.

• Just Be There at The Beginning

First and foremost thing you could do is to help your child at the very beginning. If you’re reading these lines, then probably, your kid has some troubles dealing with the writing assignment themselves. That is why, it is essential to show them that they’re not alone struggling with the difficulties. If your kid is young, ask them why they can’t write. Is it because they don’t know what to write about, or maybe they’re scared to make a mistake? You’ll be surprised that the reasons can be various.

In case you need to help your college child, make sure they can get the grasp of academic requirements. Maybe, they find the writing standards and demands challenging. In that case, help them understand how college papers work, and explain the importance of following all the rules and instructions when crafting an academic assignment.

By being there at this early stage of a terrifying writing assignment, it’s likely your child will do the rest of the job by themselves.

• Explain “The Work in Chunks” Technique

Being overwhelmed with the overload of assignments and the endless list of requirements can make an adult anxious, not to mention a child or a teenager. So in order not to become the victim of procrastination (the common result of having too much to deal with), teach your kid about the importance of breaking the work into chunks. 

Firstly, you’ll need to help them write a list of what they need to do. If it’s writing an essay, there may be points like: coming up with the topic, searching for materials, reading and taking notes, creating an outline, etc. 

Once you’ll create a to-do-list, it’s time for the second step. Assign an approximate time for each of the tasks, and then you may even break each task into smaller accomplishments, so that you won’t be focusing on one task for more than 20-25 minutes. And then have a 5-minute break and only then proceed to the next mini-goal. By sticking to such to-do-list broken into chunks, it will be easy to notice progress. What is more, step-by-step you’ll get your child involved into the activity, as people are likely to complete an unfinished task to experience the sense of relief.

Finally, assess the progress. See how much time it took to craft a writing assignment this way, whether it was faster and easier than the way your kid is used to dealing with composing.

• Show The Importance of Individual Pace and Growth

Another hurdle on the way to your child’s writing accomplishments may be the assessment system. We live in the world of constant marks, tests and exams. In case your child is struggling with writing assignments, they may be easily discouraged when they don’t get the grades they want to achieve. 

For this reason, it is vital to focus on positive feedback and show that it’s the small steps that lead to great achievements. Help your child notice the personal progress they’re making. For instance, for younger kids, make sure they realise that they’ve used a new word, they’ve written a paragraph all by themselves, or came up with some creative idea. For older offspring, you can as well read their writings together, make comments on their style, see how it’s evolving, show them how their vocabulary is advancing etc. The main point is to keep on going, and focus on personal improvement, as this is the goal one should be looking for, rather than a mark itself.

• Encourage Your Child to Read

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” Stephen King

No matter the age, reading is the key to improving writing skills. The more one reads, the more enhanced their vocabulary becomes, the easier it is to structure their thoughts and find inspiration. That is why, this is one of the essential pieces of advice to follow if you want to lighten your child’s burden of dealing with writing assignments. 

The best way to encourage your child to read is by setting the example. Speaking from personal experience, I came from a family that reads, I’ve started reading at an early age as well. It can be a bit of a challenge for you too if you’re not a real bookworm. However, keep in mind that is a great way to motivate your offspring to take up reading and as a result improve their writing.

• Benefit from Cutting-Edge Writing Tools

Our digital era is abundant with various tools one can use to improve their writing skills. There’s an innovative writing tool called WriQ. If you haven’t heard of it, this tool is specifically designed to boost writing proficiency. This tool doesn’t only focus on eradicating grammar and spelling mistakes like the majority of applications do, but it can also measure productivity, pace of writing, and even the maturity of a student’s vocabulary. As the young generation is tech-savvy, your offspring may definitely enjoy such a way of improving their composing. If you’re not good at writing yourself, it is also worth mentioning that you can benefit from essay writing services. A lot of parents buy essays online for their kids so that they can use them as a study material. Review websites like LegitWritingServices can help you choose the best essay writing service among hundreds of different options.

What is more, a great helping tip would be to show your older child how to use proofreading tools to detect some grammar and spelling mistakes. This is a great means to polish one’s writing.

• Solve The Distractions Problem

The thing that may be dragging your child’s productivity behind is too many distractions during studying. Especially, it’s important when a kid needs to focus on coming up with ideas and structure them logically while writing. For this reason, explain to your child the importance of switching the notifications off on their phone and laptop during the writing assignment. What is more, TV must be switched off as well. When a person is trying to focus, devices can become real enemies distracting them from getting the work done. Once your child tries this advice out, they will definitely enjoy the faster way of dealing with writing tasks.

• Encourage Everyday Writing

Last but not least, a tip would be to develop the habit of everyday writing. Leaving short messages on the fridge, exchanging emails from time to time, instead of text messaging, or keeping a diary — by engaging oneself into everyday writing, a kid will get over the block of where and how to start. 

As the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect”, so don’t hesitate to help your child shift focus from just improving writing assignments, to achieving another essential and vital life skill through everyday practice.