“I don’t know what to write!”
If you hear this often from your child, you may have a reluctant writer in your household. One of the many reasons why a child is reluctant to write is that he is unable to connect with the writing activity.
He also does not understand why he has to write or who he is writing for. Your child may also be unwilling to start for the fear of making spelling or punctuation errors. These problems, however, can be averted with early intervention.
Research has shown that struggling writers are more motivated to write when they are given choices and are writing for an authentic audience. Instead of getting your child to pen more compositions at home, here are other forms of creative writing activities that can engage and excite him to write.
Creative writing for kids
Scholastic story starters scrambler is an online writing prompt generator with a dash of humour Select a grade-appropriate level and choose from different writing genres such as “write a postcard to” or “write a fairytale”. This ‘spin the wheel’ prompt generator also provides practice for description tasks of different characters that will later be helpful for narrative writing done in school.
This creative writing tool for kids will provide your child with endless hours of fun as they spin tales about ‘a freezing cold princess who gets locked in the classroom overnight’ or about “a pink grapefruit that plays soccer professionally”. The story scrambler has a myriad of topics that will definitely appeal to both genders.
Create a Comic
Storyboarding may help your reluctant writers to visualise what they want to write in a story. This comic strip creator tool from Read Write Think can provide the fun element in helping your child plan and organise his narrative writing.
Kids first choose the number of panels they wish to have in their comic strip, then select a suitable background for each panel. This tool even allows your child to select a suitable character, add speech bubbles and even props that the character needs in the comic. The best part of all is that your child can print all of his creations to create a graphic novel series.
Do not underestimate the power of a comic book series as it requires a lot of brainstorming and story development that your child might just enjoy doing with the help of this creative writing tool for kids. Do not forget to celebrate every little success that your child is experiencing with writing. Have your child share their creations with family in the form of a storytelling session. This may encourage them to come up with more stories.
Put together a storybook
My storybook online is a book creator website that allows your child to create a fiction or non-fiction ebook.
Kids first take a writing lesson that will show them how to craft the story step by step. Later, they build their storybook by adding characters, pictures, drawing and writing. After completion, your child can even download his ebook for a nominal fee of US$5.
This is an amazing platform as it even allows your child to upload his writing to share with the community for free. In the website’s library, your child can also gain inspiration to write by reading what other children have written.
Read also: 13 Creative Writing Topics For Your Primary 3 Child To Try at Home
Kids today are extremely technological savvy. With the myriad of free creative writing tools for kids available online, what was previously seen as mundane writing tasks for your child can be transformed into something fun and exciting to capture his interest.
Want to find out where your child stands in terms of reading and writing?