Now Is the Perfect Time to Develop a Child’s Writing Skills

As the quarantine slowly lifts in many regions across the country, it has already wrapped up the school year for most districts. The attempt to educate the students through e-learning met with some success in many areas, but for the most part, school districts were not quite ready for a complete curriculum of online learning. It was a trial and error first run at e-learning, but it appears there may be an opportunity again at the beginning of the next school year as governors are warning that COVID is not behind us quite yet.

What Your Child Can Do During the Summer

Since most kids have been quietly sitting on the sidelines during the quarantine and with most sports canceled for kids and adults alike for the summer already, now would be the perfect time to have your child explore their inner author for these next few months.

After all, what else are they going to be able to do in a world that is still at least partially closed? It is time to take advantage of the slowness of everyone’s life right now and capitalize on it by making your kid a bonafide author.

As an author myself, I started writing at a young age, and it was a chance for my mind to escape any hardships that I might have been facing at the time. Later on, that led me to become a journalist for a time and an editor in my early twenties. Now, I am a freelance writer with several books and magazines under my belt. But it all started in my early childhood, and your kid could experience the same thing with a little guidance and support.

How to Start

While you can start by getting your child a notebook and a pencil, in this day and age, it would be a good idea to use technology for developing writing skills. Children love to use their tech skills, and by combining writing with technology, you will probably get them excited about the prospect of creating literary works of art.

A Chromebook is an inexpensive laptop that is safer to use than most computer devices. Virus protection is included, and children are mostly unable to download questionable software programs. Plus, Google Docs can be used entirely free with a Chromebook, so all of your child’s literary pieces will be saved forever automatically in the magical and mystical cloud.

On top of this, numerous writing apps can assist them in learning to write for an audience. Also, add-ons such as Grammarly can clean up any of their spelling and grammar errors. I remember back in the day having to use an old typewriter, and White-Out was the only way I had to correct any mistakes. Early on, by the time I had finished using White-Out on all my errors, you could feel all the bumps on the paper where the White-Out concoction was placed. Not any longer!

Furthermore, once your children are done with their manuscripts, you can find literary agents’ email addresses or other ways to submit them, so there is a chance that they get published. I have had a handful of third and fourth-grade students get their work published in magazines such as Highlights, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Ranger Rick, and Weekly Reader. A little success for a child can lead to great things later on as their self-esteem is given a boost.

Not Sure How to Proceed?

You may feel ill-equipped to lead your child into the role of becoming a future literary giant. After all, some adults struggle with writing and creativity. If this is the case, iAchieve has you covered. We have a Writer’s Workshop, entirely online, for third through fifth-grade students. We will help with brainstorming ideas, structure the story, and many other aspects of storytelling that your child will need.

As the great author Mark Twain realized, writing is something that takes time and patience.

“A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact, he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he trusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. So he goes to work. To write a novel? No–that is a thought which comes later; in the beginning, he is only proposing to tell a little tale, a tiny tale, a six-page tale. But as it is a tale which he is not acquainted with, and can only find out what it is by listening as it goes along telling itself, it is more than apt to go on and on until it spreads itself into a book. I know about this because it has happened to me so many times.”

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