How to Teach Your Child to Write a Paragraph

Oftentimes I find curriculum complicates a very simple and easy process in the teaching of writing.  In many cases it leaves a parent daunted, believing that they cannot teach their child to write, or write well. I am here to tell you that YOU can do this, and you can do it WITHOUT a purchased curriculum too.  I know, because I've done it myself.

Today I want to show you how easy it is to teach your child to write a paragraph.

Essentially what you need to begin with is have a child that can tell you what they think in sentences.  If they can narrate to any length, this whole paragraph walk through will be quite easy.  If not, a little prompt or lead questioning will surprise both you and your child.

Always have the child write on something that they have previously read, heard or know something about.

Firstly, ask the child to give you the main idea of the topic that you want him to write about.

That will be his first sentence.

I.  Main Idea Sentence

The next thing you want to do is to ask the child to give you a detail sentence about the main idea.  Continue asking for detail sentences about the topic until you have 4 or 5 of them.

                                  I.  Main Idea Sentence

                                      a. Detail Sentence      

                                      b. Detail Sentence           

                                      c. Detail Sentence           

                                      d. Detail Sentence      

                                      e. Ending Detail Sentence      

The child can narrate these to you or write them one at a time on their paper as they think of them.  If the child is narrating to you simply write it down and when finished let them copy it in their best handwriting.

Additionally, teach them to indent the beginning of their paragraph and wrap their sentences around as they go.

Here's a little video that I did on this particular topic.

I'll be adding short video's about How to Teach Your Child to Write an Opinion, Narrative, and Expository Paragraphs over the next week.  All we need to do is change some of the formula and voila, our children can write!