Could you?

1. On Sunday evening sitting with your child and talking over the weekend's adventures. As you talk, make a small list of memorable events. Help them focus on small scale incidents, e.g. doing the vacuuming, the heavy rain, a pet adventure. If you've been on a large visit, list the incidents involved during the trip. You can also go back into the past or the imagination if you wish. Sometimes fact and fantasy is hard to separate at this age. Sometimes it could be about a new skill like baking a cake or about anything of interest to them, e.g. dinosaurs. Variety is the spice of life.
   
   
2. From this list help them select on to expand on. This will involve making a choice. Talk about the particular incident for a while so children can develop a few ideas …. and to give you time to decide where to start, how to help. Quality conversation will lead to quality thoughts. The aim is to help your child take the initiative.
   When you are ready tell them you will write (scribe) their thoughts. You want to aim for a quality piece rather than write for hours! Help them focus on things like 'What happened?' 'What did you think at the time?' 'How did you feel at the time?' What - pleased, worried, frightened them? What did they feel, hear, see? What did it remind them of? You may not need to use any questions, all you need is to be interested, but do encourage them to use interesting words and phrases, e.g. 'What's a better way of saying that?' Remember they're doing the thinking, your job is to prompt, focus and help them think in depth. Keep it low key and fun.
   Don't write too much! A few lines is plenty. Make sure it's FUN! Quality is better than quantity. The best poems, short stories are about small scale topics. The secret is to get them to imagine how they felt at the time, as if they were there. You can practice on something you are doing in the 'now and then' e.g. 'Fun in the Bath', 'Lying in bed at night', 'Watching the fire'. Make up together a suitable title for the piece.
   Sometimes rhymes appear, this is OK as long as it isn't forced. More common will be patterns in sounds of words.
   It can be written as a story - or one thought to a line, more like a poem. This is an excellent way. When finished, read together and enjoy. You both might see a better way of saying something. Praise their efforts, enjoy their thoughts.
   
   
3. If children bring their lists, and their one piece of scribed thought writing, teacher or child can read them out to the group or paste them into a big book. If you can only talk about one thing, this will itself be a great help.

• Children's personal experiences can be valued and shared - helping develop a healthy sense of self.
• Children will learn focus and in-depth writing skills.
• Language skills will be learnt naturally.
• Adults and children can share at home.
• The writing will contribute to the class language programme and some interests can be taken up by the class teacher.
• It will help talking, thinking, writing, spelling and reading.
• It should be fun - (don't do it if it isn't!). Children will see all adults as teachers (helpers).