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Parents Learn to Help Their Children with Their Writing

Links to Literacy provides creative, inexpensive ideas from a former teacher for parents.

Ten students sat in the library of the and looked intently at about a dozen pages of the book, “Pancakes for Breakfast,” projected onto a screen.  The book by Tomie dePaola tells its story with illustrations, without words.

Then the teacher instructed the students to write their own text for the story.

These students are also parents. They were taking part in a program for parents earlier this month on “Story Tellers:  Creative Writing through Innovative Activities.”

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Dawn Little, president of Links to Literacy and the parent of an 8-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter, presented a long list of affordable ideas on how to help children learn to write, interspersed with examples from her own children.

“You probably don’t realize how much you write," Little told her audience, citing lists to emails to journal entries. Parents “model” writing for their children, she said. Children need to see lots of models, she said, to see what’s expected of them, as well as examples of good writing.

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Besides using books as the basis for writing activities and reading, encourage your children to make lists, Little said. Ask your child to write or draw a menu for a family meal. Make a placemat that features one family member: a drawing of him or her and words that describe him.

Encourage your children to write thank-you notes for gifts. Don’t push too hard, she counseled, and tailor the note to the age of the child. A younger child might just sign her name, Little suggested, or draw a picture. An older child might compose a sentence.

Have your children incorporate stickers into their writing, Little suggested.

Keep a journal.

Make a book. Little showed a book made by her children for Father’s Day on The Top 10 Reasons We Love Daddy.  “He plays with us,” her son wrote on one page. “He puts money in our piggy bank.”  And “He gives us hugs and kisses.”  The book pages were bound together with string.

Little also focused on another kind of writing:  creative writing. She played a piece of music and asked the audience to describe, in words or with an illustration, how the music made them feel. ”Think of things you might taste, touch, smell, hear and see,” she urged.

Audience members said they saw and felt the sand of a beach and food—maybe Caribbean.

Play any kind of music for your children, while you‘re making dinner, for example, and ask them the same question, she suggested.

Or fill a bag with five unrelated objects. Have your child take out one object and write about it. Or pull them all out and incorporate all of them in a story. Photographs or pictures—even old calendars—can be used the same way, Little pointed out.

Create a writing center for your child, Little suggested, with all kinds of papers and writing tools and a stapler, so they can make their own books.

Little taught fourth and fifth grades for five years, before she had her own children. She has been home with them for eight years. She wrote a book for teachers, “Teaching Comprehension with Non-Fiction Read Alouds,” published through Scholastic. Two years ago, she started Links to Literacy.

Kerri Carpenter, part-time Title I parent coordinator at the and Title I paraprofessional at the , said she found and invited Little to lead the Title I workshop for parents of all Woburn elementary school students.

Parents at the program gave it high marks.

Shamrock parent Kelly Cluett said she came to the program “to get ideas about writing for my second grade son, Sam.” She was especially interested in “finding ways to make work at home more fun and creative.”

Cluett said Little was “excellent in providing inexpensive, hands-on ideas.” She said she would implement most of the ideas she learned Wednesday night, including the importance of a dedicated writing area.

Julie Jones, whose daughter, Carolyn, is a Shamrock School first grader, said she got “more than I expected” from the program. Among her favorite ideas:  making a keepsake book.

The only dad in the audience, Sergio Gomez, who has a son in kindergarten and a third grader at the Shamrock School, described the program as “extremely helpful.” He plans to incorporate Little’s suggestion to use stickers to encourage his son to write. His son has many stickers, he said. Parents have to model behavior, to encourage their children and to do activities with them, Gomez said.

Lisa Monteforte, whose daughter, Samantha Lundin, attends the Shamrock School, said she learned “how to teach her (daughter) how to look at a book and express what she’s seeing.”

“I’m glad I came,” Monteforte said.

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