Starting Writing off on the Right Foot with WriteShop Primary

I consider myself a professional writer which makes it ironic that my biggest failure as a homeschooling parent has been in teaching my children how to write.

Two and a half years ago, when deciding to undertake homeschooling our children, my biggest fear was teaching my younger ones how to read. There is so much emphasis these days on children’s reading ability (it’s even its own dedicated subject in elementary school now!) that I figured that would be my biggest hurdle.

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Every parenting forum is flooded with comments like “my kid hates to read,” “what books do your reluctant readers love?” And “how can I get my kids excited about reading?” And I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how eager my children are to read, how much they love going to the library and getting new books and how they beg to go to nap so they can read each day.

So I was completely unprepared for the struggle I would encounter with my daughter coming out of public kindergarten: her disdain for writing.

Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a writer and writing has always been easy for me or because I vividly remember spending my entire first grade year writing little stories during free choice time every chance I got. Or perhaps because I spent my middle school years writing books and stories.

But it turns out that just like anything else, pushing writing too early and putting unnecessary emphasis on “right” and “wrong” can ruin writing for a young child.

My elder daughter spent so much of her kindergarten year stressing about “sloppy copies” and proper punctuation that she still can’t sit down to do a writing assignment without completely losing control. And no matter what term I use (rough draft, first draft, brainstorming), she is completely terrified of formal writing.

But I’m determined to get her over this hurdle and she has been making small progress with daily journaling and even undertaking creative writing on her own. And while one of my goals this spring is to build her confidence with formal writing, my real goal is to get my younger daughter off on the right writing foot.

Truthfully, I haven’t done a lot of formal writing with my younger daughter because I’ve been scared of ruining writing for her, too. But I recently realized that there is one thing that is going to make or break her writing journey: the writing curriculum we use.

I spent all fall looking for a writing curriculum that I liked. I read websites, looked over samples and asked for help in my homeschool circles. I needed something I could easily implement and that wouldn’t overwhelm my fragile writers. Add on my need for a secular option and finding the right writing curriculum was not an easy task.

But when I found WriteShop Primary, it was love at first sight and I knew it was the perfect fit for our family.

I knew WriteShop Primary was exactly what I needed to get my elder daughter excited about writing with fun and simple activities that can build her confidence (I decided to get her a lower level than she can probably handle because I didn’t want writing to be a struggle for us anymore.)

And it is exactly what I need to get my younger daughter off on the right foot with writing. WriteShop Primary, Level A which my younger daughter is using starts at the very beginning covering the basics of writing from selecting a  topic and title and organizing ones thoughts to writing a personal narrative.

All of the WriteShop Primary activities are centered around building skill and confidence.

Each lesson includes guided writing practice in which the parent/teacher models good writing habits; pre-writing and brainstorming activities; as well as writing, revising/editing and publishing each finished piece.

We haven’t been using WriteShop Primary very long but my younger daughter has been able to work through the program very quickly because the tasks are engaging but also simple enough that she can easily complete them without getting frustrated and we have fun together doing it!

WriteShop Primary is set up to begin Level A as early as kindergarten and it is suggested that all three levels of WriteShop Primary be completed in three years (or less if starting with an older child). Each WriteShop Primary level includes a Teacher’s Guide with step-by-step instructions as well as reproducible worksheets that can be used with each of your children through the years rather than having to get a new worktext for each child making WriteShop Primary a one-time family purchase.

You can also find my suggestions for tools and supplies to set up the perfect homeschool writing center when using WriteShop Primary.

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