Stay Consistent

Consistency is key. Establish a dedicated writing schedule and stick to it. Consistent practice reinforces learning and helps develop strong writing habits. With EIW, schedule regular writing sessions, whether daily or weekly, to ensure steady progress and mastery of writing skills.

Utilize Video Lessons

EIW’s instructional videos are invaluable resources. Led by experienced educators, these engaging lessons provide clear explanations of writing concepts and techniques. Encourage your child to watch and rewatch these videos to reinforce learning, clarify concepts, and deepen understanding.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Writing is a skill that improves with practice. Encourage your child to apply what they’ve learned in EIW’s curriculum by writing regularly. Assign writing prompts, journal entries, or creative projects to provide opportunities for practice and application of writing skills. Regular practice not only hones writing abilities but also fosters creativity and confidence.

Provide Constructive Feedback

Feedback is essential for growth. Offer constructive feedback to your child as they progress through EIW’s curriculum. Focus on praising their strengths while gently pointing out areas for improvement. Encourage them to revise and refine their work based on feedback, fostering a growth mindset and continuous improvement.

With Essentials in Writing’s comprehensive homeschool writing curriculum, your child can build the foundation for lifelong writing success. By staying consistent, utilizing video lessons, practicing regularly, and providing constructive feedback, your child will develop into a confident and proficient writer. Shop EIW’s homeschool writing curriculum today and unleash your child’s writing potential!

Why Consider Homeschooling?

Homeschooling provides a multitude of advantages that traditional schooling environments may lack:

Customized Learning Experiences: Every child is unique, with individual learning styles, paces, and interests. Homeschooling allows you to customize the curriculum and teaching methods to fit your child’s specific educational needs, fostering a love for learning and encouraging mastery of subjects.

Flexible Scheduling: Say goodbye to the rigid class schedules of public schooling. Homeschooling offers the flexibility to create a learning schedule that fits your family’s lifestyle and allows for more in-depth exploration of subjects that interest your child.

Safe and Comfortable Environment: Learning from home provides a safe, stress-free environment where children can learn and grow without the pressures that come with traditional school settings, such as bullying or peer competition.

Family Bonding: Homeschooling strengthens family bonds, as parents and siblings spend quality time together, engaging in educational activities and sharing learning experiences.

Effective Use of Time: Without the need for transitions between classes or distractions from other students, homeschooling is an efficient way to cover more material in less time, leaving room for extracurricular activities.

Opportunities for Real-World Learning: Homeschoolers have the chance to engage in hands-on learning experiences outside the confines of the classroom, including field trips, community service, and practical life skills education.

Why EIW is the Perfect Partner for Your Homeschooling Journey

As a provider of a comprehensive ELA homeschool curriculum, EIW is dedicated to supporting homeschooling families with resources that are:

Standards-aligned: Ensuring that your child meets and exceeds educational benchmarks.

Self-guided: Empowering students to take charge of their learning with minimal parental supervision required.

Interactive: Incorporating multimedia and interactive elements to keep students engaged.

Adaptable: Suitable for students with varying abilities and learning styles, from ages 6 to 18.

Making the Transition to Homeschooling with EIW

Taking the first step towards homeschooling can be daunting, but with EIW, you’re not alone. We offer tools and guidance to make the transition smooth and rewarding. Here’s how to get started:

1. Assess Your Needs: Determine your educational goals and the needs of your child.

2. Understand Legal Requirements: Research your state’s homeschooling laws and regulations.

3. Create Your Space: Set up a dedicated learning environment in your home.

4. Connect with the Community: Join local and online homeschooling groups for support and resources.

Switching to homeschooling is a leap towards a more personalized and engaging education for your child. With EIW’s ELA curriculum, you can be confident in providing a high-quality, comprehensive educational experience that prepares your child for success in academics and beyond.

If you’re ready to make the switch to homeschooling, explore EIW’s curriculum options and embark on a transformative educational journey today.

A.   groan as loud and long as their lungs allow
B.   slump in their chair, slide off to the floor, and lie there face down like a slug
C.   pick up a pencil and start eating it while vacantly staring at anything except the paper in front of them
D.   pick up a pencil—then pick up another pencil and start practicing for their future career in a rock band
E.   write the assignment

For some students, writing is no big deal. However, many others would literally rather do ANYTHING ELSE besides write a personal response or an original poem or an essay.

How can you, as a homeschool parent and educator, help such reluctant writers?

Once students hit high school, this argument sometimes works: “Just do the assignment and get it done because you’re in school and this is what you need to do right now, so just do it.”

But that doesn’t work well with elementary students and middle schoolers.

So what can you do?

Ultimately, you will have to discover what works best for you and your homeschool student. In the meantime, here are 7 helpful tips to keep in mind.

1) People first. Products second.

Make sure your student knows (and YOU know) that they are valuable and important even if their writing needs improvement. Some students resist writing because it is hard or they don’t do it very well. This may lead to their thinking that they aren’t smart or good enough, which will lead to their resisting writing even MORE because it makes them insecure. Let it be clear that your student is valued and important and good even if writing is hard.

2) Break it up.

If completing an entire assignment seems like too much to accomplish, the student may resist starting it at all. If they only have to concentrate on a small piece at a time, however, the work may not seem so intimidating. Breaking the assignment up into smaller parts to be done at different times makes doing the work much less of a chore.

The Essentials in Writing homeschool curriculum has this principle built into the textbooks already. It separates the steps of the Writing Process so that students won’t have to worry about writing an ENTIRE assignment when they sit down to work. They only have to think about one step at a time.

3) Mosey over yonder for a spell.

Take your homeschool student out of their normal learning environment for a session, somewhere that they aren’t used to doing school. The irregular environment may prompt the student to avoid the regular reaction of Noooooooo! Try a corner booth at a fast food joint, or Grandma’s dining room table, or a tree house. Pick somewhere different but not too distracting and then have the student write the assignment.

This won’t be an option for every writing assignment, but you really only need to do it once. If the student realizes they CAN get through a writing project, they may be less inclined to groan or deflate or space out when writing at home.

(Off-topic question: are you a “school room” homeschooler or a “kitchen table” homeschooler?)

4) Just give them a reason. Just a little bit’s enough.

No offense to anyone, but unfortunately, some homeschool students don’t care about their work because only Mom or Dad sees it, and it’s just Mom or Dad. Shake things up and give them a reason to care!

Tell them what they write will be shown to someone else—a grandparent, an older sibling or cousin, a teacher friend of the family, or anyone! Send a picture of the work to the EIW Curriculum Team on Facebook! (We love seeing how students use the curriculum!) Share their work with others. Make it matter if they do the work and do it well. If it matters, they may not drag their feet so much.

5) Live on the flipside.

Some people’s brains shut down when told to write. They believe they just can’t communicate their ideas on paper, but they can TALK about their ideas ALL DAY.

If your student is like this, let them talk! Work through the writing process verbally. Take the pen and paper away from the student and into your own hand. Write down what they say—exactly what they say. Don’t spruce it up, don’t correct anything—just write down exactly what they say. By doing this, you will demonstrate that the student CAN take their thoughts and put them onto paper. That is, they can write.

Show them it is possible. Eventually, they’ll be able to do it on their own.

6) Don’t buy into the “one-size fits all” mindset.

When kids get into high school and college, yes, they will need to write about what the teacher wants them to write about even if the student isn’t interested in the topic at all. That will require discipline and the ability to write even if the student doesn’t care or doesn’t want to.

But elementary and middle school kids aren’t there yet.

In elementary and middle school, we want to teach the kids how to write—not how to survive a boring class, not how to appease a teacher, not how to impress an SAT essay grader. No, at this point, we just want to teach them how to communicate with words on paper. Teach them using something they are interested in! Homeschool students will be more inclined to participate and practice if the topic is something they care about.

Create writing prompts specifically for your student. Focus on monster truck rallies, ballet, animation, the family dog, Disney movies, computer coding, or even Fo….Fo….Fortnite. (That was really difficult for me to get out. I don’t like Fortnite. But you know who likes Fortnite? Middle schoolers. Do you know who has a lot to say about Fortnite? Middle schoolers. Do you know who would probably readily write a letter or a paragraph or an essay about Fortnite? Middle schoolers.)

7) Cool merch.

This last tip may seem a little dumb, but for real: a fancy folder or notebook will make writing WAY more interesting for elementary and middle school students.

I know a pack of lined paper is a dollar and a plastic black folder is $.57, but if your student just does NOT want to write, why not try to bribe them with cool stuff? Yes, it’s a cheap trick (or, I guess it would be a more expensive trick—literally, at least), but it may be what it takes to get your homeschool student over the hump of reluctance. They may not like writing, but you know what they do like? Kai from Ninjago, or Moana, or llamas in hats, or NASCAR. Associate writing with something they like, and they may not pout so much when they have to pull out that particular subject folder.

Also, for your consideration, three words:

multi

colored

pencils

Every homeschool family will have to figure out what works best with their reluctant writer, for every student is unique. Until then, we hope these tips will help you and your student discover the way to excellent writing.

By Athena Lester

Head of Curriculum and Scoring

Read.

This may seem strange and even counterintuitive. If you want to be a better writer, then you should read more? If you want to be an artist, should you frequent museums? If you want to be a professional sports player, do you watch as many games as you can?

As a matter of fact, yes! You do!

Exposure to an ideal is instructive. If you want to do something well, then surround yourself with things well done. Reading will naturally prime homeschool students’ minds for how to write well. This doesn’t take the place of hands-on practice—that is also important! But think about how an infant learns how conversation works and how to interact with objects around them by observing how their parents act. In the same way, reading will play a major role in instructing a student on how to write well.

Why is reading such a big deal when it comes to writing, you ask?

Reading demonstrates how to communicate through writing.

By ingesting what others have communicated through written language, students learn that sharing ideas through writing is not only possible but effective. When students laugh or cry or become scared or learn something because of a piece of writing, they are normalizing the idea that written words connect with the reader and mean something. They aren’t just words.

Reading introduces students to new vocabulary for more effective self-expression.

Having the words to express oneself is important. Reading introduces students to language they can use to understand themselves and the world around them better. For example, they may say something makes them feel mad. But if they had greater knowledge of vocabulary, they may more accurately say that the thing disgusts them. But what if it’s more? What if, given the right language to use, the student realizes that the issue is not just with their reaction, but with the thing itself—that the thing itself is perverted? Each of these words/ideas (mad, disgusted, perverted) is similar but means something slightly different, becoming more and more precise. Reading helps students learn these types of increasingly precise ways to express themselves and process their surroundings accurately.

Reading shows how to use prepositions in the correct way.

This one is a little strange to think about, but it’s true. I have it on the authority of college English professors with PhDs that they can immediately tell which of their students “is a reader” by how they use prepositions. It’s also a fact that, when learning another language, proper preposition usage is one of the most difficult things to pick up.

For example, in American English, there is a difference between “I talked to my daughter” and “I talked at my daughter.” Imagine if someone asked, “What did you do in the weekend?” instead of “over the weekend?” Or if someone said, “I got my degree in Harvard” instead of “from Harvard”? It just sounds wrong, doesn’t it?

Reading shows how to use prepositions properly according to the cultural standard.

Reading is important in the quest to learn to write well. What should you, as a homeschool educator, do to help your student read and write to the best of their ability?

Here are some suggestions:

1) Encourage reading!

Obviously. Chapter books and novels are great and interest many children and teens. Right now, the market is full of books directed at these audiences!

However, know that they aren’t the only option. Some students just aren’t all that into fiction, and that’s okay! Offer them poetry, or magazines, or articles. Let them read about history, science, current events, NASA, philosophy, engineering, anything! In whatever area your homeschool student is interested, encourage them to read.

2) Give your student reading material they will like!

Associate reading with something positive rather than making it a chore. When it comes to fiction, many children and teens will most likely be interested in books that are purely fun or wildly sensational.

You know what?

That’s okay.

You really don’t have to hand your thirteen-year-old Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. If they want to read fantasy books about cats or goofy books about long-lost princesses and just really aren’t interested in the more literary children’s or YA books, that’s okay. Let your child develop a love of reading their way. I promise you they will grow as readers and get into more quality stuff eventually. Almost every one of my reading peers (twenty- and thirty-year-olds) has certain books that they look back on and think, “Wow, those were so stupid and horrible, but I loved them.” And they turned out fine and did grow to appreciate more quality novels. The important thing is that the “reading bug” was caught and encouraged young.

3) Engage with your student about what they are reading!

Don’t let the experience stop with reading of the words on a page. Talk to your kids about it!

“Did you like it? Why?”

“What was your favorite part? Why is that your favorite part?”

“Who was your favorite character? Why do you like that character?”

“Did you learn anything?”

“Was there anything in the book you didn’t like? Why?”

Discussing what they read will encourage students to really think about what they are ingesting rather than just ingesting it and moving on. Verbal discussion (or hey! Written discussion) will help students understand that written content has deep meaning and can relate to many things in life.

Plus, talking about books gives you the opportunity to connect with your kid on their plain. Any excuse to deepen the relationship between you and your child is a good one.

Bottom line: You want your student to write well? Get. Them. Reading.

(Note: This post is not about how to judge the content of children’s and YA novels, some of which do not contain positive influences on a student’s thinking. For guidance about how to sort through the thousands of options, talk to your local librarian or do a search online for parent-friendly reviews.)

Athena Lester

Head of Curriculum Development for Essentials in Writing and Essentials in Literature

Let’s face it—not everyone is thoroughly invested in preparing a persuasive essay for living in the country or the city, or comparing and contrasting heat and cold. Sometimes, however, you are given the opportunity to write about something that personally applies to your life, and it’s thrilling! At the same time, this can be a tricky issue to handle in academic circles.

Topics like analyzing a favorite novel, explaining a religious stance, or persuading a reader to agree with a political opinion are all fabulous for essays, and students are often highly invested in them, but these can also lead to pitfalls in writing.

Because you have a personal connection to the subject matter, approaching it in an academically appropriate manner may be difficult.

As a scorer for EIW’s Scoring Service, I have received dozens of essays about topics like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, gun control laws, environmentalism, origins of the universe theories, and even uncontroversial topics like beloved family members and favorite hobbies. These can be the best essays—and they can also be the worst. Not because I do or don’t agree with the student, but because they don’t know how to write academically about the subject matter. While it’s wonderful to see my students so passionate and invested in various aspects of their cultures and countries and families, their voice could be better heard if they knew how to communicate personal viewpoints well.

This applies to other issues as well, such as mental health and opinions about art, films, and literature.

Let’s say, for example, a student is writing an expository essay about an art piece. Which of the following excerpts is more appropriate for an academic paper?

       The vibrant colors applied in thick coats across the canvas captivated me. Once I was paying attention, I saw the smaller details, like the abstract figures interlaced throughout the swirling colors. To me, the piece was about the beautiful mess of humanity, intertwined yet distinct.

       The painting was amazing and beautiful; people simply can’t see this work and not be changed by it. It speaks to the soul with a powerful message about humanity. I was inexplicably joyful after my visit to the museum. Truly, it was a life-changing experience.

Both passages are first person accounts of an impactful artwork, but only the first one uses concrete details and explanations; the second uses only vague terms like “amazing,” “powerful,” and “life-changing.” While these may be accurate, they are not informative. The first sample is much better fit for an academic paper.

How are you, a homeschool student, supposed to write academic essays about things that are personal to you?

About faiths you do or do not adhere to, political topics you do or do not agree with, health struggles you may or may not experience firsthand? Here are three basic guidelines:

1) Be informed.

Just because you have personal knowledge of the matter does not mean you have all the knowledge. Several of the essays I have graded in the past contained no information about the topic beyond the writer’s limited personal experience; therefore, the student came across as uninformed. This will discredit the writer very quickly in high school and college circles. You must be informed about an issue to approach it convincingly, especially if you are required to write about something you don’t believe in or don’t agree with—which is almost a certainty if you go to college.

2) Be specific.

Like I said earlier, “amazing” and “life-changing”—or, in the negative, “ridiculous” and “awful”—are not informative adjectives, and they often make your writing seem elementary. Even if you have had a life-changing experience with the matter at hand, describe that experience specifically, not vaguely. This is true for all academic papers; just because you have a personal connection to the topic doesn’t mean you should be less specific. In fact, you should be more so. Using a thesaurus to find fresh and elevated vocabulary will help bring clarity to your writing, but remember that an effective description is more than fancy adjectives and verbs. Find words and craft phrases that pinpoint exactly what you want to communicate.

3) Be academic.

Obviously, right? When writing an academic paper, be academic! But what does that mean? It means that you aren’t writing a blog post or a memoir; you aren’t writing a devotional or propaganda; you aren’t writing a journal entry or a personal letter. You’re writing an academic paper. Be formal. Be respectful. Be more focused on mind than on heart, more focused on facts than on feelings. This can be difficult when writing about a topic that really means something to you, but it is very important.

In other forms of writing—blogs, fiction, journals, devotionals, memoirs, etc.—feel free to throw #3 out the window! The first two points will help your writing be stronger in any circumstance, but the third is just for school settings. It is important, though! When writing for academics, write for academics!

On a final note, I want to say, YES! Write about topics you are personally invested in!

Do it! I don’t want to scare anyone off from writing about such things. I only want to help you write about such topics properly. The goal, as always, is to write well and communicate clearly.

By Athena Lester

Curriculum Development and Scoring Services