Activities to Help Children Build a Strong Foundation in Writing

Learning to write is a natural process; it is simply learning to put thoughts and ideas down on paper.

To enable students to become effective writers, teachers should begin at the beginning. To build a strong foundation for creating phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and stories teachers need to begin by focusing on words. Besides it, they should be ready to help those students who ask to “write my essay” and fulfill this task. Trying to teach students to write before they fall in love with words is like teaching a child to run before he masters his first step.

Teaching Students to Brainstorm

To begin, students need to learn to brainstorm effectively. Not only do they need to come up with many words, but they also need to make their word lists varied and unusual. To master this concept takes practice.

After modeling, teachers can provide repeated opportunities for practice by assigning home learning activities in which students create lists of many, varied, and unusual words to fit specific categories. A few examples follow but the possibilities are endless:

• Things that go bump in the night
• Things that bug (the student)
• Big and small things (a diamond ring, a broken heart)

As a follow-up, instructors can recognize the student who found the most words, students who varied their words from category to category (not brainstorming all food words or all sports-related words), and students who found unusual words that no one else discovered.

When home learning assignments are returned, teachers can make quick books with the results. For example, for things that bug (the student), teachers can use a stamp pad and let students put several fingerprints on a page. Then, students can add legs and other features to transform the fingerprints into bugs.

At home, each student can fill their page with many, varied, and unusual things that bug them. The next day, the teacher can quickly add a cover and some rings to create a book for the students to enjoy all year.

Dictionary Activities

To become proficient with words, students need to learn to use the dictionary. One dictionary activity, that adds zest to finding the right word, begins with the teacher reading a page two of Cathi Hepworth’s Antics [Putnam Juvenile, 1992] and for the students to create their book of antics.

In this activity, the teacher assigns each student a different letter of the alphabet. Using the dictionary, students find a word that begins with their assigned letter and also includes the letters a-n-t. Next, students create illustrations of their a-n-t words. As in Hepworth’s book, the central figure in the illustration should be an ant that is demonstrating the selected word. For example, the student with the letter V might choose the word vantage, meaning superiority over an opponent. The student’s illustration could be huge and dressed in U.S. Olympic fashion, receiving a gold medal.

A more in-depth activity to review dictionary skills is for students to create new words that they would like to see added to the dictionary. Examples include nopho: a cell phone with no charge; or shuwim: burning food in the microwave. For their words, students create dictionary entries including guide words, part of speech, pronunciation, definition, use in a sentence, and an illustration. For example, for shuwim:

• Guide Words – shut and spurt
• Part of Speech – verb
• Pronunciation – shoo’ wim
• Definition- burning food in the microwave
• Usage – After Aunt Alice shuwimmed the popcorn, a scorched smell permeated the house for hours.

Teaching Students to Use a Thesaurus

To relieve tired overused words, students need to learn to use a thesaurus. One thesaurus activity begins with the teacher assigning each student a worn-out word, like “said,” “big,” or “happy,” and then having them use the thesaurus to find effective replacements.

The teacher gives each student a pizza wheel or a handmade circle. After dividing the circle into eight slices, the student writes the exhausted word in the center and then more original, vibrant words on each slice. By adding the pizza wheels to the classroom walls, a teacher can give students immediate access to a thesaurus and remind them of the importance of using rich, precise language.

Introducing the Writing Process

While focusing on words, teachers can also introduce the writing process. Some of the above activities lend themselves to this task. For example, teachers can use the writing process to guide the students in creating an original dictionary entry.

• Prewriting – Teachers tell students to brainstorm many, varied, and unusual ideas for a new word they would like to coin.
• Drafting – Students make a sloppy copy of their dictionary entry.
• Revising – Teachers introduce the concept of ARMS (adding, removing, moving, and substituting) for revision of the dictionary entry.
• Editing – Instructors introduce the acronym CUPS to remind students to edit for Capitals Usage, Punctuation, and Spelling.
• Publishing – Teachers create a classroom book of final copies of dictionary entries.

An additional activity to remind students of the steps of the writing process is to create flipbooks. To create the books, students select three different colors of typing paper and hold them so that each piece is about an inch lower than the one before it.

Next, they flip the pages over and fold the top edges down, creating a cover and five one-inch tabs. After creasing and stapling along the top, they write the title, The Writing Process, on the cover. Then, they add the steps of the writing process to label each tab.

Inside, students draw and label pictures on each page to remind them of the steps of the writing process. For example, on the prewriting page, students might want to draw a light bulb with the words bright ideas; and for revising, they might want to include a picture of four ARMS with the words add, remove, move and substitute.

Learning to write is a process. To teach students to write effectively, teachers need to begin at the beginning. If students start by rethinking what they know about words, it will help them create a strong foundation on which they can build phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and entire pieces.

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