writing help for 4th graders

writing help for 4th graders

Writing Help for 4th Graders

1. Introduction

This book is an attempt to help make writing accessible to all fourth graders. Fourth graders are not too young to learn to write; it is a skill that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Learning to write clear, organized essays with well-thought-out ideas doesn’t have to be an impossible task. I have just started teaching this upper elementary grade after teaching 2nd and 3rd graders for many years. I’ve also taught many upper-grade students in after-school programs and at the community college. I am struck by the huge divide in writing abilities between these kids. Fourth graders should have the skills to write well-defined paragraphs and to put together a logical essay that has an introduction and conclusion. Some of my college students were not able to do much more than this! Too many 4th graders’ writing is in an early draft form for years. This book is written for the fourth-grade student who thinks that writing is something to be “gotten through”. It is also written as a resource for teachers. I have many ideas that have worked in the classroom and I will be adding more as I develop my own kid-friendly 4th-grade classroom at an international school in Japan. I will also be using this book as a guide for my students. It is not meant as an assignment, but if we spend part of the morning working on writing skills, it would make sense for the kids to have a reference point and be able to understand what it is they are trying to do!

2. Grammar and Sentence Structure

With the above in mind, it may still not be time to correct grammar. This is a minefield. Some mistakes are best left alone; they’ll disappear as the child reads more and internalizes good grammar. Be especially cautious of correcting dialect and common foreign learner mistakes. Correct use of a semicolon is not an essential communication skill for an eight-year-old. Most formal grammar teaching is best left until the child can use it to improve their writing. So, some instruction in the craft of the language rather than the art of storytelling may be done through the analysis of their favorite books. Take a sentence and change its style and grammar but not the meaning and enjoy evidence of the richness of language.

Teach your kids that first drafts are for sound; revision is for style. Original stories are too sophisticated for children to use their language as a model. They’ll benefit from copying from a style close to what they want to write. Inventing characters from popular TV shows and comic strips is great for this. Write the character’s lines. This is good for getting to grips with direct speech. A dialogue between the character and the author is a neat way of getting into the character’s head, even if it’s not a technique recognized by literary critics!

3. Paragraph Writing

Once your child can write a full sentence, you can begin working on paragraph writing. While we use paragraphs to organize ideas in writing today, it’s not something that comes naturally to children. If a 4th or 5th grader has a hard time “getting to the point,” you might actually first want to talk about writing good sentences. Remind the child that a paragraph is a group of sentences about one main idea. It’s helpful to compare a written story to a movie. In a good movie, the camera zooms in and out to take a closer look at something or to pull back and show the big picture. The same concept is in play when good writers use paragraphs. Sometimes they “zoom in” on an idea, offering a few sentences about a smaller part of the idea. Then they’ll zoom out and devote more sentences to explaining the larger points. This is something to work on implementing, not necessarily an organizational approach you want to tell the child to plan in advance; sometimes the idea to expand and create detail in one area and less in another will also happen naturally.

4. Creative Writing

Creative writing often takes the form of a story. This writing task usually involves one or more characters, some sort of plot in which something happens, settings where the story takes place, and a problem or adventure the characters face. According to Torrance (1996) and the National Commission of Writing, “Students should have the opportunity to write at all stages of the writing process and to write in all four major genres: narration, exposition, description, and persuasion.” Any of these genres can use the form of a story. Don’t push your child into any genre of writing or any particular writing task. The goal is for the child to engage in writing and discover which form of writing they enjoy most, then use it in their everyday life. If your fourth grader feels that writing is forced on them, they could grow anxious about it and not use it once their task is complete. The more the child writes, the sooner they will find their favorite form of writing. The worksheet below can be used as a tool to help your child create a story.

5. Editing and Proofreading

First, with spelling, a thesaurus is an exceptional tool that you can use to expand your word knowledge. Just check that the new word absolutely fits in the context of the sentence. Spanish-speaking students will find that if they know similar sounding words in Spanish, it is helpful to write them down and find the correct spelling and meaning in an English dictionary. Finding words that have a similar meaning is harder, but the best way to do this is to identify what you are trying to say and find a word that is easier to understand. So what is said or written does actually have a meaning. A good example is instead of using the word “bad,” use a word like “terrible” or “unpleasant.”

You should always review your writing for mistakes, whether it is typing it out on the computer or writing it out on paper. Editing and proofreading are essential because it is only then that you can see what mistakes you have made and correct them. You can enlist the help of a family member or teacher, or you can do it yourself. A good strategy for this is to read it through and then write down what the main idea or point is. Then you determine if what is written is relevant and ensure that you stay on topic, only then correcting any mistakes that you identify.