Today, we have children’s book author Kallie George give us her perspective on how to encourage our kids to write. Thanks Kallie for the great tips.
By Kallie George
I was lucky. I grew up with parents who loved reading and writing themselves. My mother is a reader and an expert at technical writing—including essays and grants. My father is an out-of-the-box storyteller, making up crazy, wonderful stories as easily as some people breathe. Together they provided the perfect environment to foster creative writing and it is no wonder I became a children’s book author.
One thing that they did for me, I believe, was to help me self-publish my books when I was a child—nothing fancy, just photocopying and spiral binding. Seeing and holding my work gave me an undeniable sense of pride and self-worth in my writing, and also a desire to keep on writing, to keep imagining worlds and realize my worlds in words. Today, not only am I a published author, but I also teach creative writing to children through a myriad of afterschool programs (including Creative Writing for Children Society—CWC), all of which have one thing in common: my students work towards the goal of self-publishing one of their stories.
Whether this story is finished or says, at the end, “to be continued”, it does not matter. The process of putting the story together as a book is invaluable for a child’s pride. But that is a final step, a goal, to reach for. How do you inspire a child to WANT to write, or if you have a child who already enjoys writing, how do you help them improve their writing without dampening their enthusiasm?
First, keep them writing and reading
The best way to help children’s writing improve is to have them keep writing, and, even more importantly reading. This is by far the most important. The more they write and read the better they will become. Next is to edit their stories with them.
Introduce editing
If you introduce editing early on to a child, they will see it as a natural process of writing—which it is, of course! I describe to my students how many times my work is edited before it is published—one chapter, for example, went through almost twenty edits! Luckily, they don’t have to do so many edits, but explaining to kids that even adults and published writers don’t write perfectly the first-time around helps them accept the editing process.
Talk about their work
Also, the editing process can be a very rewarding process for students—and make them want to write more. If you read over a child’s story and talk to a child about it, it lets the child know that you CARE about his or her story. It gives the child a chance to share his or her work and world with you. I find that my students LOVE editing time because they get to talk about their work.
Top 10 tips for encouraging kids to write
Beyond this here are some tips that I have gleaned on encouraging children to write and love writing—these are 10 seeds to plant in your blossoming writer:
1) Listen to your children’s stories; encourage them to tell you their stories.
2) If they are eager, help them make books out of their stories—staple or bind their pages together.
3) Give them time to play with toys and games AWAY from electronic devices. Imaginary play allows children to build vital story telling skills.
4) Tell stories to your children—silly, made up stories of any kind.
5) Read stories to your children.
6) Let them read books—and let them re-read the same books again and again if they want to.
7) Encourage your children to create illustrations that can go along with their stories—often young children can’t write out all they would like to, but illustrations give them a chance to tell their stories.
8) Encourage exploration--writing just isn't about the act of writing--it includes fun activities such as craft building, exploring, researching, and storytelling. All of these things are components of great writing.
9) If there are writing groups perhaps have your child join one—professional writers take part in writing groups all the time!
10) Most of all, have fun with stories—and read yourself! If your child sees YOU reading and imagining, he or she will emulate this. It is so important to read the same book together and discuss it, or even discuss the books you each read. Don’t expect your child to read (or take joy in it) if you don’t.
By Kallie George is an author, editor, and speaker living in Vancouver, BC, near the sea. When she’s not writing or editing, she teaches creative writing workshops.
Kallie is the author of The Melancholic Mermaid, www.kalliegeorge.com
