5 Tips to improve your child’s essay writing skills

5 Tips to improve your child’s essay writing skills

Whether it is a school assignment, final exam or a competition, essay writing is a crucial skill that every child should learn. An essay is a formal piece of writing, and it could be formal or informal. Essays are of varying types such as informative essays, argumentative essays, narrative essays, reflective essays and others. You need to teach your child how to brainstorm points and write and structure an essay well. Let us skim through some of the important tips that will help your child write compelling essays.

1. Understand the topic well.
   You can assign writing prompts to your kid to let them explore different topics. If they have been assigned a specific topic by the school or any writing event, let them understand it well. You can discuss with the child and ask them whether they would be interested in writing an essay on a particular topic.
   
2. Brainstorm and jot down the points.
   Brainstorming is an act in which a person reflects on a topic or theme and comes up with varying possibilities, solutions, or aspects. Let your child brainstorm, but mere reflection is not important. You should also tell them to jot down the points to ensure a properly structured essay.
   
3. Explain the process of essay writing.
   Every essay has three parts – Introduction, Main Text, and Conclusion. However, each type of essay requires a certain process. For instance, in an informative essay, one has to add value-added points and researched facts. However, in an argumentative essay, one requires writing their claims and counter-claims, keeping in mind the possible arguments.
   
4. Give them time and space to write.
   If they have personal experiences on the selected topic, let them freely write. Allot time to do research using the internet; however, ensure that they do not go down the rabbit hole. Both research and personal experiences are essential to write an essay.
   
5. Evaluate and provide constructive feedback.
   Once your child has written the essay, evaluate it using certain metrics. Give constructive feedback, ensuring that it doesn’t hurt their sentiments, and learn from the writing experience. Instead of pointing out their errors, suggest more ideas, powerful words and better sentence construction. If you realize that your child needs more grammar practice or needs to improve their vocabulary, you can assign related exercises and worksheets in due course.
   
   I am sure the above tips will help you in enhancing your child’s writing abilities. Writing a single essay is not sufficient; it needs a lot of practice to excel in essay writing. So, continue the process.
   
   All the best !

Ankita Patil

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