How To Teach A School Child To Write An Essay: Tips For Children & Parents

Very often, children find it difficult to write essays. And this is quite logical because it is pretty challenging to express their thoughts on paper adequately. You need to start learning how to write from the school bench. As a rule, the teachers’ programs provide for the gradual development of such skills. However, they are not always effective, and in such a situation, it is best for parents themselves to give some of their time for training at home. This article we devoted to the question of how to teach a child to write an essay.

WHY DO YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW TO WRITE AN ESSAY?

The writers from the “do my paper for me” services say that this question is quite often asked not only by children but also by their parents, considering that for the modern world, this is not a very relevant skill. After all, the student is instilled with respect for literature in creating an author’s work. At the same time, the ability to competently compose a text is essential not only for getting good marks at school but also for forming a creative personality. This makes it possible to expand the pupil’s vocabulary significantly, teach them to operate the learned vocabulary correctly, and instill the desire to read not only “because of the assignment at the lesson” but also from the motives of sincere interest.

In addition, the ability to write an essay is an excellent motivator for personal reflection. Gaining complete freedom of expression allows your child to express themselves on a topic of interest to them without restriction. In other words, by telling your son or daughter how to write essays, you can teach them how to speak and think like adults. Also, constant practice in this direction gives an almost complete guarantee that your child will grow up to be a literate person, and they will not make dozens of grammatical and punctuation errors when creating any text.

CRITERIA FOR A GOOD ESSAY

The criteria for judging a good essay are the prerogative of philological teachers. Unfortunately, very often, inexperienced teachers practically kill the desire of their students in the class to express their thoughts by focusing on unimportant nuances. Therefore, if you set a goal to teach your child to write essays correctly, then take into account the following indicators of a good level:

the presence of a clear structure – the beginning, the climax, the denouement, otherwise the text will turn out incoherent, as sewn from different scraps;
thoughtfulness of the topic – this aspect involves the drawing up of basic questions, the answers to which will not let the child digress in the process from the chosen subject;
the presence of argumentation – the use of others’ quotations and assertions is outstanding, but it is desirable to accustom the child to explain why they decided to apply these statements;
consistency of the text – following the basic principles, it is necessary to adhere to a certain number of words in a paragraph, to set the accents correctly, and not to overload the sentences;
adherence to style – a child must understand which words are appropriate, for example, in an essay based on a painting, and which should be used when writing an article for a wall newspaper;
dosage of facts: here, it is crucial to be able to find a proper place for it in the essay while avoiding confusion in the sequence and manner of presentation;
literacy – use of grammatical norms, speech expressiveness, and vocabulary richness.

ESSAY WRITING OUTLINE

To learn how to write an essay, you should initially adhere to the basic rules of creating a text. In this case, a good assistant will be a working plan of the essay, at least in the form of a set of theses, numbered according to the results of reflection and collection of material. If a schoolchild does not understand what a plan is, what it is needed for, and the sequence of its composition, they will not be able to build a written statement logically, however, as well as the oral one.

When making a plan, you must consider that the composition is divided into several significant parts.

Introduction

Here should be the formulation of the central thesis, which must undoubtedly be disclosed in the main part of the creation. It is also vital to define the essay’s purpose. It can be submitted as a characteristic of the era in the case of an analysis of the work of a particular writer.

The main part

This essay component is the largest and implies a complete and broad reflection of the conceived topic. It requires the disclosure and proof of the thesis stated in the first part. It may contain several paragraphs and subparagraphs arising from them.

Conclusion

This part involves summarizing and is in no way inferior in importance to the introduction. The conclusion should be brief and demonstrate the ability to summarize your thoughts to draw the proper conclusion.

All three parts must be related to each other in meaning. Although they are of different sizes, they are all equal in significance. The plan is written down on a draft and can be refined and made more specific in the process of working on the essay. It is worth noting that once the plan is made, it is not necessary to strictly adhere to it in creating the text. If the author suddenly saw a new twist on the topic that seemed interesting but was not very consistent with the plan, do not worry about it. Just make adjustments, but don’t abandon the plan altogether. You will need it so that at any moment, you can refer to it and remember the original idea or correct it.

BASIC RULES FOR TEACHING YOUR CHILD TO WRITE AN ESSAY

Parents often make the fatal mistake of needing to write an essay quickly by doing it themselves instead of the child. In such a case, they will never acquire the skills of composing and will always claim your help. At least, if your child is not into writing it themselves at the moment, you can have the best essay writing service to do your child’s paper, so you can submit it withing the deadline, and then, when both of you have time you can try to make your own version together to practice this demanding skill. So here we have tried to outline a basic algorithm for parents to work with their children, which is as follows:

Discussion of the topic

Outline together with the schoolchild the theme of the future author’s creation. It is not necessary to pretend on complex, serious topics to study. For example, “My favorite book” would be a good option.

Emphasize to the young writer that they should not simply retell the book’s plot but justify why they chose to discuss this particular creation. Guiding questions, in this case, would be:

what did you like about the main character?
what exactly attracted you to the narrative?
what emotions did reading the book provoke?
do you want to be like the hero?

Gathering Factual Material

This step is essential because it provides factual material for creating the main text. In the version with the book’s theme, you can reread individual pages, if necessary, to refresh your memory of the events that took place there. If, for example, the topic is about trips to the village to grandmother, then, in this case, you can review the pictures and remember different exciting incidents that happened during the summer vacation.

Making a Plan

Without proper planning for your future essay, it will be challenging to adhere to the logic of the text. To interest the young writer, tell them that before they start writing an article, all famous journalists must make a detailed plan in advance. The more complex it is, the easier it will be for the student to cope with his assignment. About what items are included in the plan, we told here earlier.

Collecting Vocabulary

Repetition of words, “ragged” sentences – the result of the fact that the child can not operate with words. The most common mistakes in writing essays are directly related to insufficient vocabulary. To make this task easier for them, work through the words that can be used in the paper in advance. You can also make a cheat sheet, dividing the collected vocabulary into categories of nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives.

After the essay is written, the student should be able to proofread it and correct mistakes. And also have the opportunity to listen to an analysis of their work from the outside. The critic can be a teacher or a parent who wants to help the child learn the skill of writing.

TYPES OF ESSAYS

A crucial factor in how to write an essay correctly is the need for a clear understanding of its type. This is what determines the type of expression, the specifics of the words used, as well as the size of the text itself.

As a rule, the school program provides the following gradation of genres and styles:

Essays on a Literary Theme

These works are considered the most difficult because they involve:

analysis of the writer’s literary work;
introduction of an academic and historical component;
manifestation of the writer’s worldview not directly but indirectly.

Essays on a free topic

Also, quite a problematic direction, providing for the presence of extensive literary erudition in the author. The task of the young writer – is to express their thoughts, consistently outline arguments, and correctly operate with properly selected facts.

If we talk about literary genres, then usually, schoolchildren write such works:

Composition-description of nature, paintings, people, and others, where a wide choice of expressive language is significant: epithets, comparisons, metaphors, personifications, etc.
Narrative composition, which provides for a clear and coherent presentation in a narrative vein, with mandatory observance of norms for all parts;
An essay expression is the most difficult for young authors, as they must find convincing arguments and draw competent conclusions to the given thesis.

In conclusion, the following should be noted. An essential aspect of constructing a beautiful literary speech is the child’s ability to tell about what they saw, where they were, and what they felt. Therefore, often ask the schoolchild to tell you about the book they read, the movie (cartoon) they watched, and an excursion or a trip. In the process of conversation, unobtrusively correct the shortcomings of their speech, correct the speech, and ask leading questions. After a certain period, you will notice how their speech will gradually improve. This means that writing essays will become a regular and relatively easy task for your child.