Children and Writing : Part 4

Is your child learning to write simple words in English?

Does he enjoy the activity?

Would you like to make it more interesting for him?

Whether your child is learning to write simple three letter words (like cat & mat) or bigger words (frock & ship) you can get him more interested in writing and make his learning more meaningful.

How do you make it interesting? One way would be to discuss every word your child writes. Here’s a short story that will help you understand this better.

Rohan, a five year old child has to write the word “RED” in his notebook. Before writing, his mother (Mamma) helps him read the word.

Then Mamma says “Rohan, do you know what “RED” is?”

Rohan replies, “RED is a colour Mamma”.

“Okay. Do you spot red anywhere around you?” says Mamma.

This gets Rohan interested. He looks all around to see if he can spot red.

“There I see a red napkin” he says pointing at his napkin lying on the dining table.

“Okay. Do you like the colour red Rohan?” asks Mamma.

“Yes and I also like red apples”, says Rohan with a smile.

Mamma smiles too.

“Okay, so let’s write the word RED now,” says Mamma.

Rohan writes RED in his notebook.

“Okay. Let’s move on to the next word now”, says Mamma.

The next word is “PEN”.

After helping Rohan read the word, Mamma says, “Do you know what a pen is Rohan?”

Rohan thinks for a while and says, “Something that you write with”.

Mamma says, “Okay. Do you see a pen anywhere?”

Rohan looks around and says “There must be one in your bag Mamma.”

“Can you find it Rohan?” says Mamma.

Rohan goes running to fetch Mamma’s pen.

“Okay, let’s write the word PEN now”, says Mamma.

Rohan writes PEN in his notebook.

Once done, Rohan observes the pen and says excitedly, “Mamma, this is a RED PEN!”

Do you see why Rohan was excited? It’s because he just learnt to read and write two new words “red” and “pen” and he found a pen that was red in colour!

Now, this of course happened by chance. It may not always happen. But when you lead children on a path of thinking and learning, they often end up discovering new territory. This new territory may have nothing to do with the immediate lesson (which in Rohan’s case was just writing the words RED and PEN) but it is indeed significant when you look at the bigger picture of the child’s learning.

Do you also see that this kind of thinking and exploration gets children more interested in writing? 

Enjoy and create memorable writing experiences for your child!




<p><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1962">Image: Master isolated images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></p>