Raising Compelling Communicators - Tuesday, October 12, 1999
Editor's Note: To become an effective communicator, a child must
master the discipline of writing. Many of us were never taught
how to write, so how can we teach our children? Deb de-mystifies
the process for us. You can enjoy the writing process together.
Evaluating Your Children's Writing Your 8-year-old hands you a
letter she's just finished for Grandma; what do you do? Circle
all the misspellings; correct the punctuation and grammar
errors? Or let her send the first draft with a kiss and prayer
that Grandma won't call concerned that home schooling is ruining
her grandchild? Or maybe something in between.... Here are some
ideas for evaluating your kids' writing without turning it into
a discouraging experience. 1. Major on content not grammar:
Heres why. If you over-emphasize spelling and grammatical
accuracy, then kids won't take risks - they will only use the
words they know how to spell and their sentence structure will
remain quite simple. Bu