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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