Use this structured step-by-step approach to help your child better express her creative thoughts and ideas in writing.  Beginning at the sentence level, help her write to describe, inform, explain, request, demand, amuse, and convince.

First, help your child understand basic sentence structure.

 A basic sentence answers two questions: 

 Who?                     The boy

 The boy runs.

What action?          runs

Second, help make her sentences more interesting by asking questions.

Ask questions about the subject. 

Which?                   The boy in the blue uniform runs.

How many?            The two boys run.

What kind?             The excited, cheerful boy runs.

Ask questions about the action.

How?                     The boy runs quickly.

Where?                   The boy runs across the street.

Why?                     The boy runs to the candy shop to meet his friends.

When?                   First, the boy runs to the candy shop every day.

Now, he runs every day because he needs exercise.

Keep asking questions and adding modifiers to the sentence until she has a more colorful and descriptive sentence:

The cheerful boy in the blue striped shirt sprints quickly across the busy street to the new candy shop to eat chocolate fudge with his friends.

Next, show your child how write different types of sentences.

To make a statement:       The boy runs every day.

To ask a question:             Why does the boy run every day?

To show excitement:         The boy runs every day to get ice cream!

Then, show her how to move parts of sentences around and keep the same meaning.

The boy runs every day to the ice cream store.

Every day, the boy runs to the ice cream store.

Next, show her how varying the action can make her sentences more interesting.

 The boy sprints.

The boy scampers.

The thesaurus built into word processing programs can help your child with this task.

Finally, show your child how to combine several sentences into a compound or complex sentence.

These sentences:

The boy runs every day.             

He runs with his friends.

They go to the ice cream store.   

The boy is happy.

Can become:

The happy boy sprints to the ice cream store every day with his friends. 

Need help applying these concepts?  Call 817.421.8780 to learn about Student Success!

(c) 2009- 2012, Monte W. Davenport, Ph.D.