Fostering creativity in your child is vital at a young age to improve their problem-solving skills and critical thinking. One of the most effective ways to help your child learn to be more creative and ways in which you can help them to learn to express themselves is by teaching them to be a more creative writer. If you have just laid the foundation for writing skills, or if your child writes well but needs a boost in the creativity department, you can try some of the tips listed below.
Allow Them Time to Be Creative
Creating is a process, and it cannot be rushed. If your child has a creative writing project coming up make sure that there is time in their schedule to allow them to brainstorm some ideas and get some thoughts down before writing the piece. These brainstorming sessions can produce a lot of good ideas for content and also allows them to look back at the ideas and see which ones will work.
Give them an Environment Conducive to Creativity
Everyone has their own ways of drawing inspiration. Find an area that is quiet where your child can sit and be inspired. Make sure to have a proper place to write in the space as well as all of the materials they will need so they will not be interrupted during the process. Add items in the room that they enjoy that could evoke some creative thinking. If they like nature, put some plants or flowers in the space, if they like photos or sayings, create a collage wall with inspiring thoughts and pictures.
Practice With Writing Prompts
If your child struggles with writing this is an exercise that you can do on a regular basis. Take some time a few times a week to create a story together. Start by giving them a premise and then take turns adding more and more to the story. This can be done verbally or be written down. Your child will be able to take cues from your creative ideas or sections of the story and learn how to add description and embellishment.
Build a Board of Writing Ideas
Collect items that might prove to be good writing topics such as photos and magazine clippings. Build an inspiration board with these visuals. Your child can use this board to get an idea for topics. Sometimes children are visual learners, so coming up with a context can be difficult for them without a visual prompt.
Expose Them to an Extended Vocabulary
Children may have problems writing creatively because of a restrictive vocabulary. By continuing to expand their vocabulary you are not only increasing their verbal skills but also giving them a larger bank of words to choose from when writing. Give them new words to learn and utilize each week and teach them how to use a thesaurus when they are looking for words similar to what they want to write.
Encourage Them to Writer All of Their Thoughts Down First and Edit Later
It is easy to get caught up on errors when writing and lose your train of thought. So it is best for them to get all of their ideas down as quickly as possible regardless of spelling and punctuation errors. Once they have completed the piece have them go through it once visually to edit and then have them read it aloud. Reading a piece of work aloud is important to see how it flows and it can also show your child areas where they may need to be more descriptive or provide more information to get the point across.
While all of the tips above can help improve your child's creative writing skills, the most important thing you can do for them is consistently encourage them. Don't let them feel as if they are just not a good writer or it is one of those skills that they will lack. By giving them the regular encouragement, they will become more confident and will continue to press on until the skill is mastered.
