Do you have an aspiring writer in your home? We do! I’m sharing some tips that I’m doing to help encourage and quip my middle schooler with better writing skills.
My middle schooler has been expressing for over a year now that she wants to be a better writer. Possibly even pursue this as a career when she is older. The tricky thing there is that we’ve never really done anything to help nurture this and help her develop better writing skills.
In full disclosure, I received access to WriteWell App for free, a program I will share with you all in this post. I have been compensated for my time. But this in no way sways my thoughts on it.
How to equip your middle schooler with better writing skills
1- Encourage reading. Have your kiddo read a lot. The more they read the more their imagination will be tapped in-to. All too often we lose our glorious childhood imagination and become very narrow in our thinking. Writers have this amazing gift of thinking in such creative ways.
I’m thankful that my children have always loved to read, from a young age. So my middle schooler already has a passion for this. What we have begun to do is have explore different genres and authors. In doing so she’s not only enjoying a good new book, but she’s also discovering different writing styles and ways of engaging the reader.
2- Encourage dialog. Talking ideas out is a great way to hear what you’re thinking. In our heads, things can sound great – but when heard, they may not. Dialog also helps with self-expression and learning how to bring your thoughts to a conversation in an engaging way. Most Middle School kids aren’t that chatty, so don’t feel bad if you can’t help much in this area. When the opportunity arises, when it’s a subject they are excited about – just get into it and let them take the lead. My middle schooler is pretty chatty so we don’t quite have that problem J
3- Help them grow their vocabulary and strengthen their spelling. Vocabulary is HUGE when it comes to writing. They need access to an endless supply of words to help them bring the vision to life in words. When their vocabulary is limited, their ideas stall and they become discouraged. Even though my eldest is in middles school, we still do vocabulary lessons. She has said several times that this has helped her tremendously when trying to think up stories and put them on paper. Building vocabulary also helps with spelling. You could do vocabulary building without spelling practice, but we do both together. Just like having limited vocabulary could stall their creativity, struggling with spelling could do so too. There is nothing more embarrassing than writing something with words you don’t even know how to spell!
4- Always have notebooks handy. An aspiring writer needs to be able to jot down their thoughts at just about any given moment. It’s how they keep the thought process going sometimes. We like to stock up on notebooks from Walmart when they go on sale. Super cheap and incredibly valuable to my aspiring writer.
5- Use a program like the WriteWell App to help organize thoughts and bring the written piece to life. The WriteWell App presents writing papers (including essays, book reports, and reports of several types) in a totally doable way. They use a chunking method. Focusing on one part at a time, visually, which helps organize thoughts and helps focus on each section of the paper individually. Thus, the end result is well-written work. It’s blocked-out in sections which you fill in and when you’re done you can export to a Word Doc, PDF, and of course, you can print the work.
Another benefit to the program is that it offers prompts in each section. I have to admit when I first looked at the program I thought “well, how do we know what exactly should be included in this section”. Then we clicked on a box and saw the sidebar which offers several prompts to help guide your writer. We tested the program with her first Book Report. I figured we’d knock out two birds with one stone – the first being that she needed to begin working on a book report and the second was to help her understand the program and see how useful it would be to her writing pursuits.
This year (8th grade) is when I planned on having her start writing book reports. In the past, she’s written paragraphs about stories, be never a full report. So, we decided to fold this into the plan of helping her develop her writing skills.
Take a look at the WriteWell App. For purposes of the example, I’ll share the book report she did recently. Don’t worry, I’ll share later all the other available report options in the program.
When you select your report option (Elementary, Middle School, High School, College or Blog) you will see these blocks come up. Each section has its own purpose of course.
When you click on each section, you see the prompts I mentioned above. Pretty cool, huh?
When you’re done you can take a look at the full view before you export to Word Doc, PDF, or Print.
So, what other report/paper options are available?
For Elementary
- Autobiography
- Short Story
- Historical Figure Biography
- Compare and Contrast Essay
- Science Lab Report
- Persuasive Essay
- Literature Response
- Book Report-Literature
For Middle School
- 5 Paragraph Essay
- Autobiography/Personal Narrative
- Short Story
- Point of View Essay
- Science Lab Report
- Persuasive Essay
- Book Report-Literature
- Argumentative Essay
For High School
- 5 Part Essay
- Personal Narrative
- Short Story
- Project Proposal
- News Article
- Historical Event- Cause and Effect
- Science Lab Report
For College
- Historical Document Analysis
- Literary Analysis Essay
- Argumentative Essay
- Literature Review
- Abstract (Science)
- Lab Report
- Help Me Start
- Research/Case Study
For Blog
- How To
- News Response Blog
- List Blog
- Profile Blog
- Resource Blog
- Online Journalism – Blog
And yes, each of these have the same prompts and preset blocks to help guide you. You can delete any of those blocks should you choose, or you can easily add more as well. Totally depends on what your goal is for the report (essay, or paper).
Get WriteWell
WriteWell has a couple of program options for you to choose from:
- WriteWell Basic – FREE (limited to 2 documents or projects)
- WriteWll Pro – best value app (all featured included and no document limits)
You can use discount code BTS20 for 20% off!! I’d really like to encourage you to give this program a try. There are options for every level of school (including college) and will help you to nurture your growing writer! I think you will find this as an incredibly useful tool and you’ll be able to make good use of the program with several students!
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