In the early years of homeschooling, teaching writing was my kryptonite.  It was a great source of frustration for both my son and I. Not only was I not able to explain to my son what made a sentence sound “good”, but getting him to write was like pulling teeth.  Unless– he was writing on a subject he wanted to write about.  Well, course I couldn’t allow that all of the time. Or could I?

Isn’t the point of writing learning how to write?

How did this get so complicated?

I never thought about all of the individual foundational skills that go into writing.

• thinking about the actual idea you want to write about
• thinking about how you want to express that thought
• handwriting or typing- the mechanical ability to get what’s in your head onto paper
• spelling the words correctly, or at least close enough to use spellcheck
• using correct punctuation and grammar
• knowing what words to use
• making writing interesting
• organizing your writing into paragraphs
• proofreading and editing
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