Your Child's Writing Life: How to Inspire Confidence, Creativity, and Skill at Every Age

by Pam Allyn

Overview

An illuminating resource to help parents foster a love of writing in their child's life—filled with writing prompts, engaging home learning activities, and more.

 

New educational research reveals that writing is as fundamental to a child's development as reading. But though there are books that promote literacy, no book guides parents in helping their child cultivate a love of writing. In this book, Pam Allyn, a nationally recognized educator and literacy expert, reminds us that writing is not only a key skill but also an essential part of self-discovery and critical to success later in life. Allyn offers the "the five keys" to help kids WRITE-Word Power, Ritual, Independence, Time, and Environment-along with fun, imaginative prompts to inspire and empower children to put their thoughts on the page.

A groundbreaking blueprint for developing every child's abilities, Your Child's Writing Life teaches parents how to give a gift that will last a lifetime.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781583334393
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/02/2011
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Pam Allyn is the executive director of the literacy organizations LitLife and LitWorld, and has received the Disney Points of Light Foundation award among others. She is the author of What to Read When. She lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Why Your Child Needs a Writing Life 1

1 New Dimensions for Parenting: Cherishing Your Child's Writing Life 19

2 The Five Keys: Setting the Stage for Forever Writers 34

3 The Writer's Ladder: Cultivating Your Child's Writing Life at Every Age 59

4 The Writing Doctor Is in the House: Solving the Problems of Tears, Frustration and Resistance When It's Time to Write 111

5 Grand Mentors: Twenty Great Books to Inspire Great Writing 129

6 What to Write When: Fifty Remedies to Cure Writer's Block 156

Closing Thoughts: From Purple Crayon to Instant Message 213

Index 219

Editorial Reviews

Executive director of LitLife and LitWorld and author (What to Read When), Allyn asserts that writing fosters children's emotional growth, helps them develop critical thinking skills, and guarantees improved academic achievement. In this book she helps parents understand why writing is so critical and how they can guide their children through the writing process. Allyn explains that children are naturally drawn to the power of words and stories. Walking readers through the developmental stages of a child's writing life, she provides plenty of ideas for nourishing a child's writing, with activities for each age and stage from birth to 12 (ranging from reading aloud and imaginative play to keeping a writer's notebook or writing a flip camera movie script). Writing, the author says, gives kids a voice, provides an outlet for thoughts and feelings, and offers a form of sanctuary. Allyn emphasizes the parent's role as a guide in a child's growth as both reader and writer, noting that the early childhood years are crucial for literacy development. She also includes a useful chapter on books that inspire writing, as well as a chapter called "What to Write When" with prompts and techniques for curing writer's block. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

A refreshingly novel parenting method for teaching children not just to read but to write well and love doing it.

Helicopter parents take note: Mother and author Allyn (Pam Allyn's Best Books for Boys, 2011, etc.), executive director of LitLife and LitWorld, sets forth a rigorous and, she argues, foolproof strategy for giving a child priceless gifts based on the stage-by-stage cultivation of top-level writing skills. These gifts include a reverence for words, a higher probability of academic success and a leg up negotiating adulthood. For parents, all it takes is time in abundance and years of highly focused effort. Start with plenty of storytelling and songs for newborns to 2-year-olds before moving on to shape-and-bake alphabet pretzels. Later, there's a designated "writer's corner" to which the young author can withdraw to muse privately or find his or her writing voice. Fifty remedies for writer's block help make the words flow. Age-appropriate book lists (don't look for classics) inspire children and parents along the way. Allyn argues convincingly that to make it all work, parents must be tireless writing advocates intent on forging a writing bond with their children—and the sooner, the better. She exhorts parents to understand that being well read and able to express opinions and feelings in writing is the bedrock of a good education, and is essential to self-discovery.

All highly laudatory, but it's debatable whether parents will have the time and the will to execute the myriad steps in the program.

Kirkus Reviews