how to help your child write essay

How to Teach Your Child to Write an Essay – Step by Step

Children are naturally creative, and essay writing should come easy to them. But it usually doesn’t. 

So, how can you teach your child essay writing while making the process enjoyable for both of you?

I’m Tutor Phil, and in this article I’ll show you how to teach your child how to express thoughts on paper, even if some resistance is present.

We’ll first learn three principles that will help you make progress fast. And then we’ll go through the step-by-step process of teaching your child how to write an essay. 

Principle 1. Clarity equals motivation

We’ve all heard the expression: “You can lead the horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink.” One of your concerns can be your child’s motivation. 

You may be convinced that your child hates writing or is really bored with it. Perhaps your child will do anything to avoid sitting down to write. 

And you know what – any or all of the above may be true. But your child can still learn how to write an essay because it is not the lack of motivation per se that is the problem.

In this short video, Dr. Lee Hausner gives some eye-opening advice about motivating a child:

Here are the key points Dr. Hausner makes:

• You cannot create motivation in somebody else.
• Strong parents often mistakenly feel that they can transfer their motivation onto their children.
• Motivation is internal.
• Simplistic formula: “ Activity + Satisfaction = Motivation .”
• Conversely, “ Activity + Stress & Pressure = Avoidance .”
• Create an environment where your child can be successful and enjoy what he does. 
• Encourage and reward any small success and bit of progress. 

Let’s apply these principles to motivating a child in writing an essay. 

How to motivate a child to write

Chances are that if your child would rather not engage in writing, that is primarily because the process is fuzzy in his mind (and I’ll use the pronoun “he” to refer to your child throughout the tutorial, for the sake of elegance and brevity). 

You see, essay writing is not really taught in school. It is taught kind of sort of, but not really. 

Assigning a topic, grading the essays, and making suggestions for improvement is not teaching. It’s only a part of the process. 

To teach is to give the student a method, a step-by-step process, in which every step can be measured and improved. 

That’s what I’m about to give you. And that’s what you will need to effectively teach your child. 

But when a child does not have a step-by-step method, the process is fuzzy in his mind. And whatever is fuzzy is viewed as complicated and difficult because it’s like eating an elephant whole. 

Let’s revisit Dr. Hausner’s formula: “ Activity + Satisfaction = Motivation .”

Activity can be satisfying only if it is successful to some degree. When your child succeeds at something, and you acknowledge him for it, that becomes fun, enjoyable, and satisfying.

But you see, it’s hard to succeed at something without knowing what you’re doing. And even if you succeed, if you did not follow a recipe, then in the back of your mind you suspect that you probably can’t repeat or replicate the success.

Not knowing what to do while being expected to do it is a recipe for avoidance. And guess what – your child probably got his share of fuzzy instructions.

For example, consider this instruction:

“Tie it all together.”  

This statement is meaningless – to a child or even to an adult. What does it really mean to “tie it all together?” And yet, this is how they usually teach how to write a conclusion paragraph, as an example. 

But such a statement only creates fuzziness and demotivates.

So, in this tutorial, we’ll be cultivating clarity. I’ll be giving you crystal clear instructions so you could develop clarity in yourself and help your child develop it, too.

Principle 2. Writing is thinking on paper

An essay consists of sentences. The word “ sentence ” comes from the Latin word “sententia,” which means “thought.” 

Thus, to write literally means to express thoughts on paper. Why is this important?

This is important because by teaching your child how to write an essay, you’re really teaching him how to think . 

Your child will carry this skill through his entire life. It will be useful, even indispensable in:

• Acing standardized tests
• Writing papers in college
• Putting together reports and presentation professionally
• Defending a point of view effectively

You can tell I take essay writing seriously 🙂

But if you ever run out of patience yourself, just remember that you’re really teaching your child how to think. 

Principle 3. Essays are built not written

When you child hears the word “ write ,” he gets that queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

We’ll make it a lot easier for him by thinking of writing an essay and referring to it as just “ building an essay.”

If your child has ever loved playing with Lego, then the method you’re about to learn will feel familiar, both in terms of motivation and developing the skill. 

By the way, if you want to brush up your own essay writing skills before you sit down with your child to teach him, I highly recommend this article: Essay Writing for Beginners . 

All right – without further ado, here are…

Six steps to teaching your child essay writing: 

Step 1. Pick a topic and say something about it

In order to write, your child must write about something . That something is the subject of the essay. In this step, you want to help your child pick a topic and say something about it. 

In essence, you’re asking your child these two questions:

What will your essay be about?

• What about it?

For example, 

“My essay will be about grandma’s lasagna.”

“Okay. What about grandma’s lasagna?”

“It’s my favorite food.”

The result will be a complete main point, also known as the thesis. A thesis is the main point of the entire essay summarized in one sentence: 

“My grandma’s lasagna is my favorite food.”

Boom! Now, the reader knows exactly what this essay will be about. It is also clear that this is going to be a glowing review. 

Here’s my short video explaining what a thesis is:

When teaching a child, it’s important to keep the topic unilateral. In other words, it should be either positive or negative. It should be one simple idea. 

Don’t start out trying to develop a more complex topic that offers a balanced perspective with positives and negatives. Don’t do a compare/contrast, either. Keep it simple for now. 

This is the first step because the main point is the genesis for all other ideas in the essay . 

How to help your child pick a topic

Encourage your child to pick a topic he can get excited about because then he’ll be enthusiastic thinking and talking about it. 

Try to think of some of the things you know he is interested in. He can write an essay about absolutely anything.

It doesn’t have to be a serious or an academic subject. It could be anything from apple pie to Spiderman. 

Of course, the subject should be informed by your child’s age, as well. But once you sit down to work on essay writing, make it clear to your child that he can pick any topic he wants. 

Ask your child what he would like to write about or “build into an essay.” And whatever he chooses, just run with it. That’s what your first essay together will be about. 

Once you’re settled on the topic, just have your child write it down on a piece of paper or type it into the computer.

Here is a list of suggestions for essay topics to give a try:

• What I love the most about the summer
• My favorite thing to do on weekends
• John is my best friend because…
• Essay writing is…
• My least favorite day of the week is…
• My favorite season is…
• It is important to be brave (intelligent, skillful at something, etc.)
• If I could have any animal for a pet, it would be…
• My sister (brother) makes my life (exciting, difficult, etc.)
• Holidays are fun times (or dreadful times).

Remember – this is not the only or the last essay you’ll write together. Just encourage your child to pick a topic and write it down. Now, you’re ready for the next step. 

Step 2. Practice the Power of Three

We’re building our essays, remember? Not writing them. At least at this point, all you’ve done is encouraged your child to pick a topic. No writing involved yet.

In this step, no real writing is involved, either. It’s just a mental exercise, really. 

In writing or building an essay, it is necessary to break things into parts. Young children love to break things because they want to see how something works or what it looks like inside. 

How do you write an essay about an egg?

You must first divide the concept of an egg into parts. How do you do that? I highly recommend this simple technique I call the Power of Three. 

Three is an optimal number for a young brain, and really for adults, as well, to think about and process. Our brain thinks like this: “One, two, three, many.”

One doesn’t help us because you’re not dividing. Two is okay but not quite enough ideas to develop.

Three is easy to deal with while giving your child a challenge. And let’s set the record straight – thinking is not easy. It is challenging. This is why so few people teach it. 

But we’re making it fun by breaking it into steps and providing clear instructions. 

Okay, so back to the egg. Let’s apply the power of three to the idea of an egg:

You see, if we only have a whole egg as an idea, it’s like staring at the blank screen or sheet of paper. Nothing causes the writer’s block better than one solid piece.

But now that we’ve divided this idea into three sub-ideas, or supporting ideas, this makes our life discussing eggs a lot easier. 

Now, if we wanted to write an essay about eggs, we can discuss:

• The yolk and its color, taste, and nutritional content
• The egg white, its color, taste, and nutritional content
• The shell, its color, texture, and shape

Note that when we divide a topic or an idea, each part must be different from the other parts in some important ways. In other words, we want three distinct parts. 

You can use this part of the tutorial and ask your child to think about how to divide an egg into parts. It’s a very intuitive step, and your child will love the challenge. 

And by the way, you child may get very creative about it because the answer is not necessarily the yolks, the white, and the shell. It could be:

• Chicken eggs
• Ostrich eggs
• Boiled eggs

Whatever way to divide eggs into three concepts your child comes up with, approve and praise it. Now, let’s apply the power of three to an actual topic. 

We need a topic that we’ll use for the rest of the tutorial. Here it is:

“If I could have any animal for a pet, it would be a panther.”

Applying the Power of Three to an essay topic

Let’s apply what we just learned to this topic about a panther. Note that we have the entire thesis, a complete main point. Our subject is “a panther as a pet.”

We’re just using this example with an understanding that panthers don’t make good pets and belong in the wild. But since we asked, we should roll with the child’s imagination. 

Now, you want to encourage your child to come up with three reasons why he would choose a panther as a pet.

This is a challenging step. The first one or two reasons will come relatively easily. The third reason usually makes the child, anyone really, scratch his head a little.

Let’s come up with three reasons why a panther might make a great pet. 

Reason 1. Panthers are magnificently beautiful.

Great! That’s a good reason. 

Reason 2. A panther is more powerful than virtually any other pet.

That’s another legitimate reason to want a panther for a pet – you’re the king of the neighborhood, if not the whole town. 

And now, we’re thinking of reason 3, which will be the most challenging, so be ready for that. 

Reason 3. Panthers are loyal.

I’m making this one up because I really have no idea if panthers are loyal to their human owners when they have any. But I need a reason, this is just a practice essay, and anything goes. 

When your child comes up with a reason that is not necessarily true or plausible, let him run with it. What really matters is how well he can support his points by using his logic and imagination. 

Working with facts is next level. Right now, you want your child to get comfortable dividing topics into subtopics. 

The only criterion that matters is whether this subtopic actually helps support the main idea. If it does, it works. 

Step 3. Build a clear thesis statement 

Once you know the topic and the supporting points, you have everything you need to write out the thesis statement. Note that there is a difference between a thesis and a thesis statement.

Here’s a short video with a simple definition and example of a thesis statement:

Once you and your child have completed steps 1 & 2 thoroughly, step 3 is really easy. All you need to do is write out the thesis statement, using the information you already have. 

In fact, at this point, you should have every sentence of your statement and just need to put them all together into one paragraph. Let’s write out our complete thesis statement:

“If I could have any animal for a pet, it would be a panther, for three reasons. Panthers are magnificently beautiful. They are more powerful than virtually any other kind of a pet. And they are loyal.”

Note that we added the phrase “ for three reasons ” to indicate that we are introducing the actual reasons. In other words, we are building an introductory paragraph. We’re just presenting our main and supporting points here. 

When you read this opening paragraph, you unmistakably come away with a clear idea of what this essay is about. It makes a simple statement and declares three reasons why it is true. And that’s it. 

It is so clear that not even the least careful reader in the world can possibly miss the point. This is the kind of writing you want to cultivate in your child. Because, remember, writing reflects thinking. It would be impossible to write this paragraph without thinking clearly. 

Note also that there is no need for embellishments or other kinds of fluff. Elegant writing is like sculpture – you take away until there is no more left to take away. 

And guess what – we now have a great first paragraph going! Without much writing, we have just written the first paragraph. We were mostly building and dividing and thinking and imagining. And the result is a whole opening paragraph. 

Step 4. Build the body of the essay 

The body of the essay is where the main point is supported with evidence. Let’s revisit one of the rules of writing – to write an essay, you need to divide things into parts.

The body of the essay is always divided into sections. Now, since your child is presumably a beginner, we simply call the sections paragraphs. 

But keep in mind that a section can have more than one paragraph. An essay does not necessarily have the standard 5-paragraph structure. It can be as long as your child wants. 

But in this tutorial, each of our sections has just one paragraph, and that’s perfectly sufficient. 

How many sections will our body of the essay have? Well, we used the power of three, we came up with three supporting points, and so the body of the essay should naturally contain three paragraphs. 

How long should the paragraphs be? Let me show you how to gauge word count.

This is just an example of how you can teach your child to distribute the number of words across paragraphs. 

As you can see, our body paragraphs should probably be longer than the introductory paragraph and the conclusion. 

This is how I always teach my students to go about a writing assignment that has a certain word count requirement. The essay above will contain about 400 words.

If your child needs to write 600 words, then the following might be a good distribution:

• Introductory paragraph – 75 words
• Body paragraph 1 – 150 words
• Body paragraph 2 – 150 words
• Body paragraph 3 – 150 words
• Conclusion – 75 words

By doing this kind of essay arithmetic, it is easy to map out how much to write in each paragraph and not go overboard in any part of the essay. 

Body paragraph structure 

A paragraph in the body of an essay has a distinct structure. And this structure is not restrictive but it is rather liberating because your child will know exactly how to build it out.

The first sentence in the body paragraph is always the lead sentence. It must summarize the contents of the paragraph. 

The good news is that this sentence is usually a form of one of the sentences that we’ve already written. How so?

Well, in our thesis statement, we have three supporting points. Each of them is essentially a lead sentence for that section or paragraph of the essay. For example, consider this sentence from our thesis statement:

“Panthers are magnificently beautiful.”

This is the first reason that your child would like a panther as a pet. It is also a very clear standalone sentence. 

It is also an almost perfect lead sentence. I say “ almost ” because we don’t want to repeat sentences in an essay. 

So, we’ll take this sentence as a base and add one or two words to it. We can also change a word or two by using synonyms. That way, we’ll expand it just slightly and turn it into a perfect lead sentence for our first body paragraph:

“ Panthers are very beautiful and graceful animals.”

Okay, so we added the epithet “graceful,” but that’s okay because grace is virtually synonymous with beauty. And now we have a great lead sentence and are ready to proceed. 

Let’s write out the entire first body paragraph and see how it works:

“ Panthers are very graceful and beautiful animals. When portrayed in documentaries about animals, panthers are nicely balanced. They are not as huge as tigers or lions. And their size allows them to be nimble and flexible. Their size and agility make them move very beautifully, almost artistically. When I imagine walking with a pet like that on the street, I can see people staring at my panther and admiring its beauty. It would definitely be the most beautiful pet in my entire neighborhood.”

The first sentence, as we already know, is the lead sentence. The next three sentences explain how panthers’ balanced size and agility make them graceful. 

The following sentence is an explanation of how these qualities make them beautiful through the power of movement. 

And finally comes the most specific bit of evidence – an example. This child paints a perfect picture of himself walking his pet panther on a leash. People admire the animal’s beauty, and the kid gets a tremendous kick out of this experience. 

It is an example because it contains imagery, perhaps even sounds. It is a specific event happening in a particular place and time. 

As you can see, this paragraph proceeds from general to specific. It also follows the structure in the diagram perfectly. 

Guide your child through writing two more of these paragraphs, following the same organization. And you’re done with the body. 

Proceeding from general to specific

Argumentative (expository) essays always proceed from general to specific. Our most general statement is the thesis, and it’s the first statement in the essay. 

Then we have our supporting points, and each of them is more specific than the thesis but more general than anything else in the essay. 

Each lead sentence is slightly more specific than the preceding supporting points in the thesis statement. 

Then, an explanation is even more specific. And finally, examples are the most specific elements in an essay. 

When working with your child, cultivate this ability to see the difference between the general and the specific. And help your child proceed in that manner in the essay. 

This ability is a mark of a developed and mature writer and thinker. 

Step 5. Add the conclusion

I almost always recommend concluding an essay with a simple restatement. Meaning, your child should learn how to say the same things in different words in the conclusion. 

Why did I say, “almost?” Because some teachers will require that your child write a conclusion without repetition. 

In that case, the teacher should instruct the student what she expects to read in the conclusion. A great way to deal with this situation is to approach the teacher and ask what kind of a conclusion she expects. 

And she’ll say what she wants, and your child will simply abide. 

But in the vast majority of cases, simple restatement works just fine. All it really entails is writing out an equivalent of the thesis statement – only using different words and phrases. 

Here is our thesis statement:

And here’s our conclusion:

“I would love to have a panther as a pet. Panthers are such magnificent animals that everyone would admire my pet. People would also respect it and keep some distance because of its power. And the loyalty of panthers would definitely seal the deal.”

All we did was restate the points previously made. Let your child master writing this kind of a conclusion. And if you’d like a detailed tutorial on how to write conclusions, I wrote one you can access here . 

Step 6. Add an introductory sentence

The final step is to add one sentence in the first paragraph. I didn’t use to teach it because it’s perfectly fine to get straight to the point in an essay.

This little introduction is an equivalent of clearing your throat 🙂

However, teachers in school and professors in college expect some kind of an introduction. So, all your child has to do is add one introductory sentence right before the thesis. 

This sentence should be even more general than the thesis. It should kind of pull the reader from his world into the world of the essay. 

Let’s write such a sentence as our introduction:

“Not all pets are created equal, and people have their choices.”

And here’s our complete introductory paragraph:

And this concludes the tutorial. You can keep coming back to it as often as you want to follow the steps, using different topics. 

If you’d like the help of a professional, don’t hesitate and hit me up . 

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

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How To Improve Writing Skills For Kids: 14 Easy Tips

Writing — it’s an important form of communication and a key part of education. But in today’s technology-driven world, kids aren’t given many opportunities to practise and improve their ability to write. This leaves many parents wondering how to improve their child’s writing skills.

It takes time to develop strong writing skills, and it can be a tough task to accomplish. Thankfully, there are many things that parents can do at home to help improve children’s writing skills.

From fun activities to daily reading and writing sessions, these tips on how to improve kids’ writing skills will help your child build his or her skills in no time.

Improve your child’s communication skills with these simple and fun kids’ writing activities.

14 activities to improve kids’ writing skills.

Regular reading is a stepping stone to better writing and helps kids’ strengthen their writing skills. It helps expand children’s vocabulary and shows them different ways of using words. This also makes it easier for them to use these words in their own writing.

Make it Fun!

Create writing worksheets, try different materials, write letters.

Today, writing letters is a bit of a lost art. Encourage your child to write letters to friends or family members. Distant family members will especially love receiving handwritten letters and it’s a great way to work on improving writing skills for kids.

Encourage Journalling

Create a writing space, invest time, connect their interests, create story prompts.

A fun way to improve kids’ creative writing skills is to have them write short stories.

Use Technology to Your Advantage

Make it part of your daily routine, praise their work, improving writing skills can be fun.

Writing is an important practical life skill. While developing great writing skills requires lots of time and patience, you can help your child with these simple writing exercises for kids.

Lots of reading, frequent writing time in a special writing area, and incorporating fun writing activities and games will all go a long way to giving writing skills a boost.

Need Extra Help?

If your child needs extra help improving his or her writing skills, Oxford Learning can help. Our English tutoring program helps develop kids’ writing and comprehension skills, from word recognition to paragraph writing. Contact us today !

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Your step-by-step guide to writing an academic essay (& review checklist), find an oxford learning ® location near you, we have over 100 centres across canada.

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Step 1: Cultivate a Reading Habit

Step 2: encourage writing regularly, step 3: focus on vocabulary expansion, step 4: teach grammar and syntax, step 5: practice different types of writing, step 6: create a supportive environment.

Have you ever wondered why some children seem to excel at writing while others struggle to put their thoughts on paper? It’s a common concern among parents and educators alike, especially in a world where communication skills are more important than ever. Finding effective ways to improve writing skills for kids is a goal we all share, but how do we achieve it?

SplashLearn: Most Comprehensive Learning Program for PreK-5

SplashLearn inspires lifelong curiosity with its game-based PreK-5 learning program loved by over 40 million children. With over 4,000 fun games and activities, it’s the perfect balance of learning and play for your little one.

This blog will cover a structured approach to developing your child’s writing skills . By the end of this guide, your child will be equipped with the tools they need to express themselves more effectively and confidently through writing.

• Start Early:

One of the most effective ways to improve writing skills in kids is to introduce them to the world of reading as early as possible. When children are exposed to reading from a young age, they not only learn new words but also understand how sentences are structured , and stories are built. This early exposure lays a solid foundation for their writing skills. 

• Diverse Materials:

To keep their interest alive and kicking, it’s crucial to offer children a variety of reading materials. By diversifying their reading materials, children explore different writing styles, learn new vocabulary, and understand various perspectives. This opens their minds to different ways of expressing thoughts, which is a key component in how to improve writing skills. SplashLearn offers a variety of books for kids to read according to their reading levels :

• Decodable Books
• Leveled Readers
• Bedtime Stories
• Story Books Featuring Fun Characters

Track Your Kid’s Reading Progress:

Talking about what they read is as important as the reading itself. When you discuss a book or any reading material with your child, you encourage them to think critically about the story, the characters, and the message. Ask them questions like, “What do you think will happen next?” or “Why do you think the character did that?”

This engages them in a way that mirrors the writing process. They learn to form opinions and articulate their thoughts, which are essential skills in writing. Engaging in discussions about reading materials is a powerful strategy as it teaches kids to connect with the material on a deeper level and express their insights effectively.

Begin with these reading skills enhancing games :

Encouraging kids to write regularly is a cornerstone in developing writing skills. When children make writing a habit, they improve their ability to express thoughts clearly and become more creative and confident. Here’s how you can support this habit:

• Creative Worksheets

Creative worksheets are a fun and effective way to engage children in writing. These worksheets can include word puzzles , word matching , and sentence completion exercises that make writing enjoyable and reinforce writing skills and strategies. By solving these worksheets, children learn to think creatively, structure sentences, and use new words, all of which are essential components of writing.

Begin here:

• Daily Journal

Maintaining a daily journal offers numerous benefits. It provides a personal space for children to express their thoughts, feelings, and daily experiences. This practice helps develop writing skills and encourages them to reflect on their day, fostering a habit of mindfulness and self-awareness. 

• Writing Prompts

Using writing prompts is a fantastic way to stimulate creativity in young writers. Prompts can range from imaginative scenarios to questions about their daily life, encouraging them to think outside the box and explore different writing styles. This exploration is crucial in developing writing skills, allowing children to experiment with their voice, tone, and narrative structures.

• Letters and Emails

In today’s digital age, teaching kids the value of writing to communicate with others is more important than ever. Writing letters and emails to friends and family members not only practices formal and informal tones but also emphasizes the importance of clear communication. It’s a practical application of writing in real-world scenarios, showing children the power and impact of their words.

Expanding a child’s vocabulary is a key factor in ways to improve writing skills for kids. A rich vocabulary allows kids to express themselves more clearly and creatively in their writing. Here are some effective methods to enhance their vocabulary :

• Vocabulary Building Worksheets

Adding vocabulary-building worksheets to your child’s learning routine is an effective method to enhance their word bank. These worksheets can range from matching words with their meanings, filling in blanks with appropriate words to creating sentences with new vocabulary. 

• Word of the Day

Implementing a “Word of the Day” strategy is a simple yet powerful way to expand your child’s vocabulary gradually. Each day, introduce a new word, its meaning, and how it can be used in a sentence. Encourage your child to use this new word throughout the day in their conversations or writing. 

Reading aloud to children, or having them read aloud to you, offers dual benefits. Firstly, it exposes them to new words in context, which is crucial for understanding usage and nuances. Secondly, reading aloud improves pronunciation and helps in retaining new vocabulary. This interactive activity also allows for immediate explanations of unfamiliar words, enhancing comprehension and the ability to use these new words in writing. 

Understanding grammar and syntax is crucial for children to write correctly and effectively. Here’s how you can help lay a solid foundation and improve their skills in this area:

• Basic Grammar

Starting with the basics of grammar is essential. This includes understanding parts of speech, sentence structure, and punctuation. Teaching basic grammar helps children form correct sentences and express their ideas clearly. By knowing how to construct sentences properly, children can communicate their thoughts more effectively, making their writing not only correct but also more engaging. 

Start here:

• Editing Practice

The importance of self-editing cannot be overstated. Encouraging children to review and edit their writing teaches them to pay attention to detail and critically evaluate their work. This practice not only helps in correcting grammatical errors but also in refining their writing over time. You can start with focused practice, such as looking for and correcting only punctuation errors, and gradually move to more complex aspects like sentence structure and word choice.

Diversifying the types of writing your child practices is key to developing well-rounded writing skills. Here’s how to approach this:

Exposing children to different writing styles and formats includes storytelling , descriptive essays , book reports, and persuasive essays , among others. Each style serves a different purpose and helps children learn to adjust their tone, vocabulary, and structure accordingly. For instance, storytelling encourages creativity and the use of descriptive language, while persuasive writing teaches them to present arguments logically. 

• Guided Writing

Structured guidance in writing is important, especially when children are exploring new types of writing. Guided writing involves providing a clear framework or outline for a writing task, which can help children organize their thoughts and focus on the task at hand. This could be as simple as giving them a template for a book report or a step-by-step guide for crafting a story. 

Through guided writing, children learn how to structure their work, develop ideas, and link thoughts coherently, which are essential skills for any type of writing. 

Constructive feedback is a powerful tool for fostering improvement in writing. When giving feedback, focus on both strengths and areas for improvement. Highlight what they did well to encourage them, and offer specific suggestions on how they can make their writing even better. 

For example, if a child writes a story, you might compliment their imaginative plot but suggest they develop their characters more deeply. Feedback should be a balance of encouragement and constructive criticism, helping children understand that writing is a process of continuous learning and growth.

Creating a supportive environment is crucial for children, especially for those who may be struggling with writing. A nurturing atmosphere can significantly enhance their learning experience and contribute to their writing development. Here’s how you can create such an environment:

• Setting Goals: The Importance of Achievable Targets

Setting clear, achievable goals is another essential aspect of creating a supportive environment for children learning to write. When setting goals, it’s important to ensure they are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). For a child struggling with writing, this could mean setting a goal to write a short paragraph each day, learning five new vocabulary words a week, or completing a simple story over a month.

• Encouragement: The Power of Positive Reinforcement

When you acknowledge their efforts and progress, no matter how small, you validate their hard work and encourage them to keep trying. Highlighting what they’ve done well before addressing areas for improvement can make them more receptive to feedback and eager to improve. This approach is fundamental as it builds a positive association with the learning process.

• Writing Space: Creating a Conducive Space for Writing

Designating a specific area for writing that is quiet, well-lit, and comfortable can help your child concentrate better and feel more inclined to write. This space doesn’t need to be large or elaborate; a small desk with organized supplies can make a big difference. A dedicated writing space signals to your child that writing is an important activity deserving of its own special place, thereby supporting them in their efforts to improve their writing skills.

• Be a Role Model: Demonstrating the Value of Writing in Everyday Life

By incorporating writing into your daily routine you demonstrate that writing is a valuable skill beyond the classroom. Whether it’s writing a shopping list, sending an email, or jotting down notes for a project, showing your child that writing is a part of everyday life can inspire them to explore writing outside of academic assignments. Being a role model in this way is one of the most effective ways to improve writing skills for kids, as it provides them with a tangible example to emulate.

Conclusion 

Improving your child’s writing skills is a journey that involves patience, practice, and support. By following these steps and consistently applying these ways to improve writing skills for kids, you can help your child become a confident and capable writer. Remember, every effort counts in nurturing their growth and love for writing.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do you help a child who is slow in writing.

To help a child who is slow in writing, encourage them with positive reinforcement, break writing tasks into smaller, manageable steps, and provide them with plenty of time to practice without pressure.

How can I get my 5-year-old to practice writing?

To get your 5-year-old to practice writing, make it fun by using colorful markers, engaging in activities like tracing letters in sand or with finger paints, and praising their efforts to keep them motivated. Incorporating writing into playtime activities can also be very effective.

What causes poor writing skills in students?

Poor writing skills in students can be caused by a lack of reading, insufficient practice, limited vocabulary, and inadequate feedback on their writing. Sometimes, it’s also due to a lack of interest or confidence in their writing abilities.

How can students improve their writing skills?

Ways to improve writing skills for students include reading regularly to enhance their vocabulary and understanding of sentence structure, practicing writing consistently, seeking feedback to learn from mistakes, and engaging in exercises that focus on different aspects of writing, such as grammar, punctuation, and style.

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My Kid Can’t Write an Essay Without Having a Meltdown

She gets overwhelmed every time—but breaking down the assignment into smaller steps could help her manage it.

Editor’s Note: Every Tuesday, Abby Freireich and Brian Platzer take questions from readers about their kids’ education. Have one? Email them at [email protected].

Dear Abby and Brian,

My daughter is in ninth grade and is really struggling with essay writing. English, history, the subject doesn’t matter—she has a meltdown every time. She just stares at the screen and doesn’t know where to start.

I try to remember what I learned in high school about the Roman empire or Robert Frost to get her going. I’ve tried to leave her alone, or to sit there doing the work along with her. None of it ever seems to help. I find myself dreading her getting an essay assignment, because whenever she does, the night before it’s due nearly always ends with her in tears or yelling at me.

What can I do?

Julia Virginia

Dear Julia,

Seeing your daughter so upset when confronted with writing assignments can be painful. We appreciate your instinct to help, but neither leaving your daughter alone nor sitting there doing the work along with her is the right approach. What will help is taking an assignment that overwhelms her and breaking it down into a series of small, manageable steps that she can do on her own. The goal is not to get an essay written no matter what, but to set her up for being an independent, confident student who doesn’t rely on you at every turn.

You’ll want to sit down with her and say something like “I know essay writing has been really hard, but it will help if you can think about it as a set of smaller steps and budget enough time for each.” Then go through these steps with her:

• Read the material, highlighting important points and taking notes.

This is the starting point for any good essay writing. Suggest that even before she is assigned a writing prompt, she begins taking notes on the material as she reads it. Annotation should serve as a conversation with the text: She should mark significant or reaction-provoking passages and jot down a few words about why they are noteworthy.

• Review the notes, looking for one thread that ties everything together.

This is how she will begin building her thesis. Teachers sometimes disagree over whether students should start with a working thesis and then find evidence to build their case, or start with examples and see where they lead. We believe that the thesis and examples should be developed together; as your daughter narrows down evidence, her thesis can evolve.

• Write topic sentences for each of the body paragraphs, and then match topic sentences with examples and analysis to build an outline.

Your daughter should think about defending her thesis with a series of sub-arguments, each expressed as a topic sentence for her body paragraphs. Many students have difficulty connecting their arguments to evidence, because they are inclined to summarize the material rather than critically evaluate it. Your daughter can ask herself what her examples reveal about her topic sentences and then delve into the importance of word choice and literary devices as is relevant.

• Write introduction and conclusion paragraphs.

With topic sentences, examples, and analysis for each body paragraph together in outline form, your daughter can move on to her introduction and conclusion. The focus of her introduction should be general background information leading up to the thesis, and the conclusion should offer new insight into the significance of the topic and a parting thought for the reader to ponder.

• Use the outline, introductory paragraph, and conclusion to write a first draft.

Once she has completed an outline, she’ll have a straightforward road map for writing a draft with more thoroughly developed ideas.

• Look over the draft twice: once to ensure that the argument flows logically and a second time to eliminate errors in grammar and syntax, as well as to sharpen word choice.

We recommend that all editing be done while reading the work aloud from a printed draft, pencil in hand. Once these revisions are implemented, she’ll have a final draft ready to go.

If a single major assignment becomes six minor ones, your daughter is far less likely to feel overwhelmed. This process, from start to finish, will take about a week, so she should plan accordingly. With a calendar in front of her, she should look at what assignments she has coming up for the rest of the semester and mark deadlines for each of these steps so that she won’t have to rush at the end. Remember that writing always takes longer than it seems it should. Helping your daughter plan well in advance should allow her to approach writing with less trepidation and instead see it as a process composed of clear, manageable steps.

As she does this more and more, she’ll find that her belief in herself will grow—and you won’t cringe when you hear about the English essay due next week.

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7 Tips to Teach Essay Writing to Your Children

Writing is one of the most important skills for your child’s education. The unfortunate thing is that classroom settings often don’t provide enough practice time to really hone those writing skills. Experts from Ace Papers can provide good lessons and instruction, but there’s still a lot of slack for parents to pick up. Follow these seven tips to teach essay writing to your children.

Refresh on basic writing skills

Before you dive into essay writing, make sure your child has a good grasp on the basic elements of writing. Make sure they know the importance of things such as proper spelling and the rules of grammar. Remember to teach them these concepts at an age appropriate level, you don’t need to deliver a huge lecture. Be patient and correct them when they make a mistake and explain what the proper way to do things is. These fundamentals are the basic building blocks that you’ll be building their essay skills on. Here is an assortment of ideas to choose research paper help , combine or alter in order to come up with the answer that works best for your kid.

Start with a thesis

“Explaining an abstract concept such as a thesis to child can be challenging, but it’s a necessary understanding if they are to write an essay. Give them clear direction and simple examples to help explain what a thesis is and why it’s so important to an essay. Provide some prompts to get them started or give them some examples of what a good thesis statement is,” writes Carolyn Kirsch, educator at Academized . Try and emphasize that the thesis is the core of an essay, everything else is built out from it.

Show them how to write an outline

Your outline is a master plan for your essay and will include all the important elements. A lot of children aren’t comfortable expressing their thoughts in writing, and an outline is a great way to encourage them and show them the logical context of their essay. Show them the basic structure, including the introduction, main body, and conclusion. Explain to them that the main body is where they will make their arguments and the conclusion should be a thoughtful summary of their main points.

Encourage them to read

One of the best ways for your child to improve their writing is simply by teaching them to love reading. Reading is great because it gives them plenty of good writing examples to soak up and learn from. Reading is also a good way to increase their vocabulary and that is key for improving writing skills. The more your child reads the more they will learn about how sentences work together and the stronger their essay writing skills will be.

Practice lots

Writing practice is very important to building essay writing skills. A lot of kids don’t get very much writing practice in the classroom. Teachers will explain the basics and give them some exercises, but the time spent writing in the classroom is very limited. Encourage your child to write at home. Help them by giving them a theme to write about for the day. The next day, you can build off that theme by having them write an essay about it.

Use technology to help your child

Chances are you associate technology with distracting your child from reading and writing. But used properly, certain technologies can be very helpful to improving your child’s essay writing skills. Don’t be afraid to let them use the tablet if they prefer to read and write using that device. Just remember though to ensure your child doesn’t copy information from other resources online. We asked  online expert  Adam Collins regarding how lenient colleges & schools are when it comes to plagiarism in essays, he said “Most establishments now have comprehensive plagiarism checkers when marking essays, its important children steer clear of the temptation on copy a sentence of two from different resources, as this will now be flagged easily by the tools. Pinterest can also be a great tool because it is very useful for organizing materials, and since essay writing involves research, Pinterest can be very helpful.

Online tools can help teach your kid essay writing

There are a lot of resources on the web that can help you teach essay writing to your child. Here are a few to get started with:

• ViaWriting and WritingPopulist – These grammar resources are great for simplifying the writing process and making grammar a bit more approachable.
• BigAssignments and EssayRoo – Proofreading is something a lot of children struggle with, and it requires a lot of attention to detail. These proofreading tools, suggested by Revieweal , can help.
• StudyDemic and StateofWriting – Read through these blogs with your child and you’ll get access to lots of helpful suggestions on essay writing.
• BoomEssays and UKWritings – These are editing tools that have been reviewed in Boomessays review and are very helpful at catching the mistakes you are likely to miss on your own.
• MyWritingWay and LetsGoandLearn – Check out these academic writing guides for help teaching your child to write an essay. They are simple and will walk your kid through the writing process step by step.

Conclusion The writing skills you teach your kid now will serve them for the rest of their life. Writing is a huge part of success not just in high school, but especially in college and the working world. Use these seven tips to teach essay writing to your children.

View the discussion thread.

Grace Carter is a mom who works remotely at  Coursework Writing Service  and Paper Fellows websites. There she manages blog posts, works with a team of proofreaders. Also, Grace teaches academic writing at the Elite Assignment Help services

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How to Help Your Child Learn Writing Skills

Michele Constantini / PhotoAlto / Getty Images

Many kids just aren't that into writing, and it shows in their school work through the years.   You may save your child's cute early writings . But with the exception of homework assignments , writing isn't a big part of our kids' everyday life at home. What can parents do to help their child develop good writing skills during the elementary years?

Start Writing Early

Advancements in educational research shows that reading and writing development are intertwined in early learning.   The physical act of writing letters and early words enhances the child's ability to read. The complementary relationship between reading and writing continues long after these early efforts. Parents enhance their child's skills dramatically by encouraging the writing habit in childhood.  

Follow the lead of early childhood educators by allowing phonetic writing rather than worrying about proper spelling in preschool and kindergarten.  

Focus on the Building Blocks of Good Writing

A rich language environment is a foundation for good writing.   Games and activities that build vocabulary can help increase the range of words your child will know how to write. Word games are classic and fun for families. Now, you can find fun word games online or on mobile apps.

Checking your child's homework for spelling and punctuation errors will reinforce the skills your child is learning at school. When they have a report to write at home, help them take the time to write a first draft that you can check. Then, mark the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors for them to correct.

Most middle elementary children are able to use a word processing program to write reports. Teach your child to use the spellchecker.

Provide Tools and Opportunities for Writing

Mechanical pencils, gel pens, and plenty of paper, both lined for your child's grade level and unlined, should be available for spontaneous writing play and projects . Brightly colored note cards and stationery make writing letters and notes to friends and relatives a fun—and regular—writing habit. Let your child write the shopping list before a trip to the store. Encourage journal keeping for special times such as a family trip.   If your child has a creative streak, gifts of writing activity books will help to encourage that talent.

Learn Easy Strategies for Elementary Writing

Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, co-authors of The Well-Trained Mind , discuss a step-by-step guide to the writing process for teaching elementary students at home.   This includes practicing oral composition by encouraging your child to talk about what it is they are going to write. Children can also learn narration or dictation practice by copying sentences from books or from story dictation onto paper. This teaches sentence and paragraph structure.

Don't be discouraged by your elementary child's lack of writing skills, since every child develops at their own pace. As Julie Bogart, homeschool educator and founder of the online writing program, Brave Writer , states on her blog, "It is much more effective to look at how writers grow naturally than to focus on scope and sequence, grade level, ages, or the types of writing that ought to be done in some “established sequence.”"  

Your child will eventually develop good writing skills over the years with plenty of practice. Help them build their scope of language by encouraging them to talk about everything they're interested in—and then have them write it down. Remember, there's no need to be critical of their creative writing efforts, either. Make the process fun for them and they will foster a love for writing from an early age.

Goldstein D. The New York Times . Why Kids Can’t Write . August 2, 2017.

Lonigan CJ, Allan NP, Lerner MD. Assessment of Preschool Early Literacy Skills: Linking Children's Educational Needs with Empirically Supported Instructional Activities . Psychol Sch . 2011;48(5):488-501. doi:10.1002/pits.20569

James KH, Engelhardt L. The effects of handwriting experience on functional brain development in pre-literate children . Trends Neurosci Educ . 2012;1(1):32-42. doi:10.1016/j.tine.2012.08.001

Ouellette G, Sénéchal M. Invented spelling in kindergarten as a predictor of reading and spelling in Grade 1: A new pathway to literacy, or just the same road, less known? .  Dev Psychol. 2017;53(1):77-88. doi:10.1037/dev0000179

Rodriguez J. Scholastic. How Journaling Benefits Your Child . July 20, 2017.

Wise, Jessie, and Bauer, Susan Wise. The Well-trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home . United Kingdom: W.W. Norton & Company; 2004.

Brave Writer. Natural Stages of Growth in Writing .

By Kimberly L. Keith, M.Ed, LPC Kimberly L. Keith, M.Ed., LPC, is a counselor, parent educator, and advocate for children and families in the court and community.  

How To Effectively Teach Essay Writing To Your Child

Sharing is caring!

An important skill required for academic excellence and personality development is essay writing. Some children are naturally gifted as good essay writers, while others need practice to improve. However, to improve these writing abilities, school activities or practices are not enough. Parents must take time out to teach essay writing to your child.

Plenty of time should be given to children to practice essay writing, which can be done perfectly at home under parental guidance. By the time you finish reading this article, you will be confident that you can help improve your child’s essay writing.

The Benefits Of Teaching Your Child To Write An Essay

• Your child develops their writing style
• The child develops persuasive techniques
• Chances are they will write an essay for a college entrance exam
• Enhances brain development and cognitive skills
• Get to use their creativity
• Children who are strong writers are more confident

11 Fundamentals to Teach Essay Writing to Your Child

The following 11 hints are useful if you are looking to improve your child’s writing skills.

1. Start with the Basics to teach essay writing to your child

Your child must know the basic elements of writing before jumping into essay writing. Meanwhile, make sure they know about grammar rules and proper spelling. Remember to show these essential elements at an early age. If they are committing a mistake, correct them and explain how to avoid these mistakes or errors. 

Additionally, you can try to make essay writing interesting for them. One way is that you need to have a general discussion on the informative essay topics over dinner. Ideally, you can share a few examples or facts to stimulate your child’s interest.

These fundamentals serve as the base on which you will build your article writing skills. Here is a collection of ideas you may choose from, combine with, or change to help you develop your child’s most meaningful possible response.

Related Article: Best Narrative Essay Topics

2. Understand A Topic

It isn’t easy to explain a thesis statement to children. They only need to understand the topic well. You must give them proper guidance to explain why theory is important for an essay. 

“Give them a few starter questions or give them specific examples of good theoretical explanations,” advises Carolyn Kirsch, an instructor at Academized. Try to show how the essay’s thesis serves as its central emphasis and informs every other component of the writing.

The statement will need to state the topic of the paper and the argument the child will make about the topic.

3. Encourage Reading

The best method to improve your child’s writing skills is to encourage them to read because a good reader is a great writer.

By reading, your child will know plenty of good examples to learn from. It is also helpful to improve vocabulary, which is a key to increasing writing skills. 

Reading will teach the child more about essay writing skills and how sentences work together. It will be beneficial to give them high-quality articles on the same subject as the essay assignments you will provide them with.

Through this exercise, your children will learn to look for useful information before writing their essays. 

Your children are learning a new language through reading. As they read, encourage your children to look for new vocabulary and include them in their practice writing essays.

Your children will become great essay writers if they develop excellent reading habits.

Related Article:  10 Brilliant Tips To Help Your Child Thrive During Virtual Learning

4. Do The Research For Writing Essays

The most effective way to develop writing skills in your child is to engage in more research. Researching is excellent since it provides them with various helpful writing resources to absorb and learn from.

Make sure that the research material applies to the essay topic. Interact with the information directly by challenging their own biases and raising questions. List the main points that they intend to cover in their essay.

5. Create An Outline

Creating an outline is a master plan for an essay as it includes all the important elements. Most children are not comfortable expressing their feelings and thoughts while writing. But the outline is a great way to show their context logically in their essay.

An outline will help to remember the structure of an essay, starting from the introduction, main body, and conclusion.

Outlines help to organize and manage thoughts. It maintains the flow of an essay. Also, the outline ensures that you are not missing any vital information.

6. Structure of the Essay

After creating an outline, carefully plan an essay. You need to encourage your child to write a topic. Add all relevant ideas, opinions, and research about it. A variety of templates and ways are used, such as a mind-map.

This way will help you identify their opinion about an essay’s topic and core idea. If you are unsure about mind mapping, you can Google to find many examples.

This way will help your child stay organized into a clear and logical structure. The introduction and conclusion purpose should be explained. It might sometimes be helpful to save writing them until after the main essay is finished because they are sometimes the most difficult parts of the essay to write.

Make sure your child has a clear understanding of paragraphs as well. Assist them in separating their primary points into distinct paragraphs or parts for their essay.

Please remind your child that the paragraphs should link back to their core concept and logically flow from one to the next.

7. Practice Writing In Order to teach essay writing to your child

It is important to practice writing to build essay writing skills. In the classroom, many children don’t want to practice writing. The time spent on writing in school is limited as teachers will give them exercises and explain the basics.

You need to motivate your child to write at home. Give your child a theme to write about for the day. Once they have the theme, they can write an essay about it.

8. Write an effective ending

The conclusion section comprises three to five sentences. Conclude your essay by writing the significance of the topic. The purpose of a conclusion is to show a clear picture of your essay.

You need to include attention seeking sentence in your conclusion. You don’t need to add new information. Use a clincher sentence to wrap it up and leave a lasting impression.

9. Use Technology To teach Essay Writing To your Child

There are chances that the use of technology will distract your child from writing. If you correctly use technology, it will be helpful to improve your child’s writing skills.

If your child feels comfortable using a tablet for reading and writing, then there is no need to be afraid. You need to care about that don’t let your child copy information from online resources. 

Additionally, there are a ton of websites for the best essay writing services that can guide your children in improving their essay writing.

Use technology as an advantage to help you teach your children how to write effective essays.

Throughout the entire procedure, be prepared to assist your kid. Your children will improve their essay-writing abilities with your encouragement and assistance.

Always be looking for fresh approaches to teaching your child new skills. Your kids will become proficient essay writers when you model creativity and patience.

10. Be Patient And Avoid Overworking Your Child

Appreciate the efforts of your child instead of giving direct opinions about flaws. You can give them suggestions on how they can improve their essay writing skills in a better language.

It would help if you keep a balance between practice and breaks. Ensure that you don’t overwork your kids.

Example language to use with your child when editing:

• I see 3 consecutive sentences begin with the same word. Can you think of another word to start a few of these sentences with?
• Have you heard of transition words? How about you Google transition words and see if you can add 5 of them to this paper?
• This part is a little confusing to me. Can you explain what message you are trying to convey?

11. Share Essay Examples

An interesting way to teach your children about essay writing is to share examples of high-quality essays. It can be helpful if your child is not familiar with the structure of an essay.

It helps the child to know what they are aiming for to set objectives for their writing. You can find an essay example online, or another way is to write an essay by yourself.

It would benefit your child if you discussed the characteristics of an essay to find out what makes it successful and which areas need to improve. Use the following sample essay to teach your child.

Sample Essay

If you follow the hints mentioned above, then you will be able to write a good essay. The following sample essay will help you to get started. The topic of the essay is protecting the environment.

How To Protect The Environment

Introduction

Everything that surrounds us on earth is our environment. Our natural environment includes air, soil, water, forests, plants, hills, oceans, water bodies, etc.

Unfortunately, human activities are damaging our natural ecosystem. Environmental protection is urgently needed because humans are destroying the environment daily. This essay will discuss the important ways or steps to protect the environment. Steps involved to protect the environment Following these steps should save the condition of an environment. I. Reuse and Recycle The primary sources of waste that pollute the environment are discarded materials from households that can no longer be used, such as glass bottles, plastic, shopper, computers, clothes, or other plastic items.

These waste materials stay in the soil and water for years and cause pollution and decrease the quality. We need to take simple steps to recycle the waste instead of throwing it into the environment. It would be a great job of protecting the environment.  II. Protect Trees Trees are considered the lungs of the planet. Trees are essential members of the environment. They act as filters, and the air quality index will keep high.

Trees consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Trees serve as a house for millions of life forms, such as birds, insects, reptiles, etc. The more trees we save or plant, means we contribute to improving environmental health.  III. Don’t Litter How many of you have seen plastic bottles, bags, food packaging, etc., lying around at beaches, historical sites, and markets? The litter is the most harmful because it merely pollutes and rots the environment.

Avoiding littering is the most pleasing thing we can do to protect the environment. Make it a practice to properly dispose of rubbish in a dustbin. Wait till you spot one if you don’t see any around.

IV. Save Rainwater The general health of the environment is impacted by water, whether it be surface water or subsurface water.

The ecology would suffer if the water supply ran out. A great way to collect rainwater is to save water and protect the environment. V. Student’s Contribution to Environmental Protection Students are important to the preservation of the environment. They are perceptive, sensitive, and open to suggestions and guidance.

Many schools take part in cleanliness projects. With full energy and excitement, students taking part in such activities are unique.

A student who appreciates the worth of the environment will also impart understanding to the younger and older family members.

Conclusion The last thing you want to do is pollute the environment because that is where we live.

It is our responsibility to maintain a healthy, safe environment for all living things, including us and other species.

Q1: Which grade is best for a child to learn essay writing?

For most children, third grade is a good time to start to learn essay writing.

Q2: What is the basic structure of an essay?

The structure of an essay is comprised of three sections: 1. Introduction 2. Body              3. Conclusion

Q3: Why is writing important for children?

Writing develops organizational, and cognitive growth and the power to influence others. Writing powers the brain.

Q4: What are the best ways to improve a child’s writing at home?

The following best ways are helpful to improve your child’s writing skills at home:

• Provide a noise-free place
• Encourage reading
• Give your child authentic writing opportunities
• Try to be a good writing role model
• Ask questions
• Motivate your child to publish their writing

Call To Action

For kids, writing essays may be a very stressful and daunting experience.

If your child is writing one of their first essays, keep in mind to be patient and not put them under excessive pressure. They will become more adept at planning and writing essays on their own as they gain more experience. 

Instead, try to provide them chances to practice by having them write about engaging and fascinating topics.

Remember to praise and motivate your child. So, that writing will become a pleasurable learning experience.

Hopefully, the fundamentals mentioned above can help your child to become an excellent writer in the future.

In order to celebrate your child’s accomplishments, you can have a publishing party and your child can share their work with your family, friend and extended family. Finally, this is motivational for your child.

This article was written in collaboration with Emma Grace is an enthusiastic and experienced content writer.

She also worked as a technical, educational, and scientific writer. She has great creative potential and understands how to make compelling content.

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How to (Peacefully) Help Your Child with Essay Writing

Having trouble working with your child on their essay? We understand how you’re feeling.

Essay writing is a skill students are expected to learn in middle school and master in high school, but writing is often challenging. Writing is also a very personal process, so even if your child is working on a dry academic essay, they might feel self-conscious about showing you their work.

Don’t fret, we’re here to help! At Ivy Tutors Network, we pride ourselves in our tutors’ ability to guide a student through the writing process without losing their unique voice. You can do this too. The trick is to put yourself in the role of your child’s editor.

Writers and editors have a symbiotic relationship. They work together to make a piece of writing strong. In this relationship, the editor plays a supportive role—a sort of curator in the gallery where the writer’s work is being displayed. To relieve tension or opposition, we’ve found that it helps for parents and educators to talk through this writer-editor relationship with the student, explaining that this is exactly the way professional authors work. In fact, none of the TV shows, movies, blog posts, magazine articles, or books that we like would exist without editors.

Now, let’s go through a standard essay-writing process and look at exactly how we can help your child’s writing reach its maximum potential.

1. Brainstorming

The first step to writing is brainstorming. Whether it is a creative personal essay or an academic one, students need to start with strong ideas. Let your child start by thinking alone about their essay subject. Note-taking is an essential part of the brainstorming process, so encourage your child to write down any ideas that come into their mind, no matter how outlandish or silly.

Next, sit down together and discuss the notes. If you don’t understand something, ask them to explain it out loud. This exercise often helps students articulate ideas they had trouble expressing in writing. The act of explaining also helps students realize which ideas are strongest. If they have a lot to say about a particular point, chances are they have a lot to write about. Weaker ideas are often ones that can be explained in a sentence or two, but can’t be taken much further than that.

If you think there might be more to an idea than your child realizes, suggest it to them! If they don’t like it, discard it. Your job is to help them flesh out their notes, but they should always have the final say.

2. Outlining

After you and your child have gone through all their notes, it’s time to work on an outline. The standard essay format that most students are asked to write is the five-paragraph essay: an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Even for personal essays, this is a safe format to follow. Some essays might have two body paragraphs, others four—make sure to take a good look at the prompt for specific instructions on structure. For example, some essays need to include quotes from a text, others don’t.

Making an outline with your child can be a great way to work together. It helps them know that they’ve worked out a solid structure for their paper (which instills confidence), while also giving them room to write the essay as they see fit.

3. Writing the First Draft

Now onto the first draft. This is something the student should do completely on their own. Part of writing an essay entails discovering how to proceed. Often the writing isn’t very good at this stage—what matters is getting something down on the page. Encourage your child to struggle through this process! A first draft doesn’t need to be polished—it just needs to be written down.

Some things the student should keep in mind as they write:

• An introduction should succinctly explain how the prompt will be addressed and always needs to give the reader a clear roadmap for how the essay will unfold.
• Each body paragraph needs to directly and clearly address what is being asked in the prompt. If quotes are being used, make sure to focus on textual analysis and explain how the quotes support your ideas.
• A conclusion must restate the essential points outlined in the essay, but never verbatim, and ideally with some final insight. This could come in the form of a personal experience, an anecdote learned from a book, a pertinent quote, etc.

4. Revising

This is where you should jump back in to help your child. Once the first draft is written, have the student reread it to check for spelling or grammar errors. Students often don’t bother to proofread their writing and should get in the habit of doing this early on. Once the essay is proofed, offer suggestions that you think might make it stronger. If you feel, for example, that one idea is not as fully fleshed out as the others, suggest some ways they might be able to amplify it. If the student has made a grammatical error, don’t just fix it for them—explain why it is a mistake and how it can be avoided in the future.

If your child has some significant changes to make, encourage them to sit back down and do some rewrites. Then come back to the essay together and repeat these steps until you both feel the essay is as strong as it can be.

5. Writing the Final Draft

Last but certainly not least, it’s really important to have your child read over the essay one final time to take full ownership of the final product. Have them check for typos, word repetition, unnecessary wordiness, awkward syntax, incorrect punctuation and any other small details they might’ve missed.

There you have it: how to support your child’s essay-writing, while avoiding the tension in helping when it’s not wanted or they're not ready. When you step back into an editor role, you’ll help your child learn to express their ideas, gain confidence, and practice good habits such as outlining and proofreading. With good experiences early on, your child could go on to fall in love with writing, setting themselves up for success in school and life.

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How to teach your children essay writing in 5 steps

When you sit down to teach your children essay writing you might not initially know where to begin. Essay writing is the cornerstone of any education and half or more of the subjects your kids are likely to tackle in their school lifetime will require essay writing skills. Writing tips for kids are something that will take them from being a mediocre student to one that shines. Confidence when writing is something that can truly be learned – very few people are born with this important skill. That’s good news, in fact. Like anything worthwhile doing, all great writing takes is practice and dedication.

How to inspire your kids to love writing

Teach Your Children Essay Writing in 5 Steps

Step 1: start with basics.

Lots of kids aren’t great with grammar. Grammar takes time to learn and many parents and guardians simply don’t correct their young children enough, which is doing them a disservice. Some parents might even find these little mistakes cute, funny or charming – but that’s where very young children get into trouble later in life. Some common grammatical errors made by children are listed by writer Amanda Morin here . Phrases like, ““I goed to the store with Daddy so we could buy traps to catch the mouses ,” or, “I’d rather have cookies then cake.” You need to correct your children and equip them with the basics of spelling and grammar. You don’t have to deliver a massive lecture on writing concepts or run the whole grammar gauntlet in one day. Do this step by step, correct them gently when they make a mistake and select grammar and spelling practices which are appropriate for their grade, age, and essay requirements.

Step 2: Create an outline

When spending time with young children we can see them struggling to find the correct words when speaking; this is even more apparent when they’re tasked with writing. The vast majority of children are not initially confident when expressing their thoughts on paper, so it’s an important step to teach your children essay writing in a sensible way. To help your children with essay writing, teach them how to create a structure of the message or story they want to tell. When they perfect this, creating an outline for an essay becomes easier. Once your kids understand “logical context”, their mission is half accomplished. Impart the importance of structure: an introduction, body of the essay (including arguments and structured thoughts), and a well-thought out conclusion. Have them practise with something fun, such as an age appropriate story or fairytale.

Step 3: Provide examples and practise a lot

Give your kids examples! Children work better when they have some examples of what they are trying to do lying in front of them. This tactic, called “learning by example”, will help your children get more ideas about creating their own essay papers. Work on these together and add some creativity to the task. If your kids are young, find fun examples of coordinated text and ask them to point out what structure a piece of writing has – for example, where the beginning, middle and end is. Make sure you don’t overload your kids with tasks either; do the work in small bursts and keep them engaged. Reward them with something fun, such as stickers or colourful pens, or even a new book or two.

Step 4: Don’t push your kids too much

Essay writing is a very hard and complex task; even most adults find it challenging! Striving for perfection is never the best way to get your children immersed in a writing task. Give them plenty of breaks and lots of encouragement. When they make an error, make sure you are gentle with them so you don’t affect their confidence levels. Setting them up for success in this way will give them more confidence at school. Praise them when they do well and offer positive reinforcement.

Step 5: Read to your children and encourage them to read on their own

It should go without saying but all great writers started as readers. Make reading fun! When kids are little (even from when they are babies) read to them: fairy tales, interesting stories and books designed for kids. Find out what subjects your kids love; they might surprise you! Do they love dinosaurs, science, bugs, or stories about witches and wizards? Choose age appropriate books that they will find a genuine interest in. When you are reading to your children, you’ll notice that they’ll definitely catch some words out of the text, and even remember them almost perfectly. This increases their word capacity and vocabulary. Educate your children to love reading on their own. Give them a couple of different books of one or two genres, and ask their opinions.

Essay writing skills help children throughout their school lives

It’s true – writing can be as difficult a subject to teach and assess as it is to learn and for this reason, you, as a parent, need a lot of patience while teaching your children. Remember to enjoy your time together and build a stronger rapport with your kids. This is where parent involvement can make a big difference to their learning outcomes.

When you teach your children essay writing you are giving them a lifelong skill. Encouraging your children to develop strong writing skills at a young age is worthwhile and may make all the difference to their future school success. Essay writing skills can have a lifelong positive impact on a child’s writing and may make essay writing an easier and more enjoyable process throughout their lives.

Essay writing skills for pre-teens and teens

Once your children reach the age of ten, their essay writing needs may ramp up as school requires more of them. However, some students still struggle with essay writing skills in junior or primary school with one study revealling , that “even with spell check and a thesaurus on hand, just 27% of students are able to write well-developed essays with proper language use.” It might be worthwhile to encourage older children to seek out help and to gain lots of feedback. Advise them to break tasks down into workable sections and give themselves ample time to complete tasks. Use these 12 tips to create a school essay when you get stuck.

12 tips on creating an essay outline and plan

• Before you begin: Clearly and carefully read the essay task before you begin
• Beginning, middle & end: Think about narrative, structure and formatting; and then create a writing plan
• Experts: Remember to include arguments from expert references and highlight your main points with examples
• Individual expression: Express your own individual thoughts on the essay topic, framed in context of the wider narrative
• Problem solving: Look to solve problems that arise in different, unique ways (think ‘outside the square’)
• Thoroughness: Analyse what is required of you and ensure the task has been covered end-to-end

Most school essay requirements are similar, when you break them down to their bare elements. Master these simple points:

• Cover a topic fully: make sure you consider all relevant arguments and include a sufficient number of individual ideas, based on your research.
• Be critical! Edit out all info that isn’t necessary to the final draft and be select only the most important arguments for your final essay.
• Annotate: Find evidence and examples; use thorough research from accredited sources.
• Planning: Preparing a plan will help you write logically and consistently as well as adhere to the overall essay structure.
• Proofing: Avoid mistakes; proofread your content at least twice before submitting.
• Formatting & flow: Make sure you include a strong introduction and satisfying conclusion.

How Do I Become a Better Writer, Fast?

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Teach Your Child Essay Writing in 6 Steps

Start with the basics.

Before you dive into that essay you’ll want to make sure your child has a good grasp on basic writing concepts. Grammar and spelling are the foundation on which you can help your child build that first essay. Once you’re satisfied with their understanding of these concepts, begin teaching them what a thesis is, and how to write one. “A lot of kids have trouble writing in a focused way, so help guide them and keep them on track. You’ll probably want to reinforce the idea that the thesis guides everything else they write in their essay,” recommends Paul Winston, educator at PaperFellows .

An outline is a plan or a description of the essay, showing the most important parts of it. Every essay includes an introduction, exposition, and conclusion. Outlines help people get organized when writing, and this should help your child as well. Write down the topic and their main goal which helps them clearly identify their main idea and their opinions about it. There are plenty of outline types out there, so you can easily find one that best suits your child. Then all you have to do is pull it together – creating a list of all the parts that will be in the essay.

Get them practicing

Kick start your child’s creative process by giving them some examples. It’s a lot easier to show them a concrete example, rather than trying to explain what you want them to do. As they practice they will get closer and closer to where you want them to be. Practicing is where the real improvement will come from, but be sure not to overwork them. Give them breaks and reward them for their hard work.

There are plenty of ways in which they can develop their essay writing skills. You just have to find something that sparks their interest. For instance, if your child likes video games, you can ask him to write a report on that. If they like books or comic books or TV shows, ask them to write reports where they'll compare two similar stories etc.

Encourage reading

Reading is a great way for your child to soak up all kinds of information about vocabulary and how sentences work together. The more you read to your child , or they read on their own, the better their writing will become. If they’re just not showing an interest in reading , explore your child’s favorite things in order find the right material. Once you get them interested and reading on their own, you’ll notice them picking up new words, which can be very exciting and rewarding for a parent.

Harness the power of technology

Technology gets a bad rap for distracting kids (and adults) from reading and writing, but technology can be a useful tool in enhancing your child’s experiences with the written word. Pinterest can be useful for the writing process. Your child will be identifying lots of topics and resources they may want to use for their essay, and Pinterest is a fantastic way of organizing those ideas. Just create a few boards and show your child how to pin sources onto a board. You might even find that the reason your child is struggling with an essay is because they prefer using an iPad to writing on paper or a laptop.

Try out these resources for extra help teaching essay writing

Writing can be tricky, and so can teaching writing to children. Check out these online tools for help teaching your children essay writing:

• StateofWriting & Studydemic

These are grammar resources you can use to check over your child’s writing for grammatical mistakes.

• Boomessays & Essayroo

These are online proofreading tools, listed by Simplegrad , you can use to make sure your child’s essay is polished and error-free.

• ViaWriting & Academadvisor

Check out these academic blogs for ideas and suggestions on how to teach your children essay writing. There are lots of posts here by parents who have successfully helped their children with essay writing.

• Academized & UKWritings

These are editing tools, recommended in Academized review , you can use to go over your child’s writing for typos and other mistakes.

• My Writing Way & Writing Populist

Check out these essay writing guides for help improving the writing in your child’s essay. If you struggle with writing yourself, these guides can prepare you to help your child with their essay.

Though there might be challenges as you teach your child the methods of essay writing, do your best to make the learning process fun, and eventually your child’s understanding will grow to excelling at essay writing.

about the author... Grace Carter is a teacher at  Big Assignments  and  Assignment Help  services. She teaches academic writing and curates edtech processes. Also, Grace tutors at  OX Essays  writing website. 

5 Tips To Teach Essay Writing To Your Children

Writing is one of the crucial skills for young kids because it’s an important part of everyone’s education. However, schools often don’t provide students with enough practice time to help children master writing. Students need to write essays all the time, but they don’t get enough training to learn how to write good essays. Fortunately, if you see that your child struggles with writing, you can help them.

Nobody knows your kids better than you, and you know how difficult a transition to high school, college, and university can be. If you want to make sure that your child will succeed in the future, you should make sure that they are well-prepared. Essay writing requirements will only become more and more strict so the writing process will also become more difficult.

Without a doubt, good writing skills are useful in adult life. Besides, they may help your child win a college scholarship when the time comes to enroll. Also, it will probably save you money that you would otherwise spend on scholarship application essay writing services to help your child get into the college of their choice. It’s important to explain the importance of writing to your kids and to provide them with the necessary help early on.

When your children are young, they still have some time to perfect their writing skills so it’s important not to waste time and to focus on effective training. Here are the five actionable tips to help your child become a better writer.

1.  Choose a subject or topic

First of all, your child should learn to choose topics for essays. Quite often, students get a topic assigned by the teacher so they don’t have an opportunity to choose a topic that is really interesting for them. Although choosing an interesting subject can be simple, your child should also know what kinds of topics are good for essays.

For example, if a topic is too broad, it will be impossible to cover it properly in a short essay. In this case, a good solution is to narrow down the topic and focus on its particular aspect. Teach your kids to choose topics that are easier to research and explain the importance of choosing unique topics.

2.  Define the purpose

Every essay should have its purpose. Of course, the main purpose might be to get a good mark, but an essay should also have an underlying general idea and an ultimate goal. For example, the purpose of an essay can be to spread awareness and to educate readers on a certain subject. An essay can also be intended to start a discussion or to provide a unique opinion.

The purpose of the essay determines many important details, such as the overall tone of writing, word choice, etc. It’s also important to consider the purpose of writing to provide clear guidelines for your child to follow. It will be much easier for your child to write if you help them set a clear direction and explain what they should look for.

3.  Focus on the basic writing skills

Before your child actually starts to write essays, it’s important to train the basic writing skills and focus on the main elements of writing. For instance, you should teach your kids grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If these elements are overlooked, your child won’t be able to produce good essays, no matter how great their ideas are.

Make sure to help your kids with grammar and spelling. You can teach them to use various spell checkers, but keep in mind that such programs are never perfect. A computer cannot understand the context of writing so it will only detect the most obvious mistakes. Therefore, we recommend that you read your child’s writing and help them fix mistakes.

4.  Teach your child to write outlines

Although teachers usually tell their students about the importance of outlines, many students overlook outlining when working on their essays. Without an outline, however, the writing process becomes even more stressful because your child needs to think not only about the content but also about the structure.

An outline helps plan the overall structure of a paper, and it also serves as a logical roadmap for the argument. In an outline, one can sort different ideas and facts by priority and think of what information should be presented in each particular paragraph. Of course, an outline can be more or less specific, but it always helps get started and figure out what the final result should look like.

The traditional essay structure implies writing an introduction, body, and conclusion. Many kinds of essays are based on this structure. Given that essays are usually relatively short, including more sections makes no sense, anyway. The introduction should start with a catchy and short hook, and then it should introduce the topic.

Usually, it makes sense to write the introduction when the rest of the essay is ready because the introduction often ends with a thesis statement that should reflect the entire essay’s main idea. When the main part of the essay is ready, it’s much easier to summarize it in a thesis statement and write an impressive introduction.

In a five-paragraph essay, the body section should contain three paragraphs. The structure of each paragraph mimics the structure of the whole essay. Every paragraph should begin with an introductory sentence, and then present one of the key points. The paragraph may end with a concise summary of the key point or a transition to the next key point that will be presented in the next paragraph.

Finally, the conclusion should summarize the whole essay and wrap it up. For example, a conclusion is a great place to reflect on the topic in a more general context. Another good approach is to end an essay with a relevant question that readers have to answer.

5.  Encourage reading

Such skills as reading and writing are closely related. However, if your child doesn’t want to read classic literature, it doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to write good essays. It’s important to always encourage reading, and it’s also important to choose reading materials that can actually be useful for your child.

For example, a great solution is to read examples of well-written essays on relevant topics. This way, your child will be able to understand what is expected from them when they’re asked to write an essay at school. Good sample essays can provide your child with some inspiration and ideas on phrasing and structuring.

Wrapping Up

Educators always require children to write many essays on different topics. However, it doesn’t mean that students always get the necessary training so the writing process is often associated with a lot of stress. Follow our tips to help your child learn to write essays, and don’t forget that practice makes perfect.

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Tips for Teaching Your Kids How to Write an Essay

By Sandra Miller

Your kids may not be thrilled when they are first faced with an essay writing task, but writing skills are very important for their future educational and emotional development. Although it can be difficult for you to teach them how to write an essay and start loving that activity, your effort won’t be left without results. The most important thing to keep in mind is that children have difficulties in expressing themselves in a structured from that requires crafting strong sentences.

If essay writing is mission impossible for your children and you really want to teach them how to write, you should work on your own skills first. You need an organized and methodical approach that will make it easy for them to understand what you are trying to say.

Start with the basics

The first thing you need to make sure of is that your children have a basic understanding of spelling and grammar concepts, which are appropriate for their grade, age, and essay writing requirements. If your children’s education lacks these building blocks, you will only confuse them with the attempt of teaching them more complicated writing skills. The result will be nothing more than frustration to both you and your children.

After you make sure that their knowledge is ready to be advanced to the essay writing stage, you should start by introducing the concept of a thesis. The first difficulty children face is directing their essays and keeping them focused. If your children struggle with writing concepts, you can provide thesis prompts or thesis statements for them. Once your children advance their writing skills, they will easily think of their own thesis statements. The thesis should be the main point around which the essay is written. Make sure to explain to them that every page, every paragraph, and every sentence within the essay, no matter how short or long it is, should be associated to the thesis statement.

Advanced stages: Creating an outline

The next step of the process is explaining your kids how to create an outline of the writing. The outline will help them maintain the logical progression from the beginning to the end of the paper. Once your kids understand sentence construction, they may have difficulties in keeping the logical context within the paper because they will be focused solely on creating sentence units that are grammatically correct, expressive, and cohesive. You should teach them how to relate those sentences to one another and stick to the outline.

Explain the meaning and purpose of the introductory and concluding paragraphs, and tell them how to structure the paragraphs in between in a logical order.

Key to success: examples and practice

If you provide examples of good essays to your children, they will immediately get ideas on creating their own papers. They won’t understand what you are trying to say if your approach to teaching is based solely on explanations. You need to be as hands-on as your kids need during the development of their first essays. Once they develop an increased confidence in their abilities, they will be able to work on their own. It is easy to find essay examples online and use them to show your kids what works and what doesn’t work in essay writing.

Practice is the key to perfection. There isn’t a more effective way of teaching children how to write essays than helping them practice as many times as possible. You should make the process interesting, so they won’t see it as a torture. Once you provide them with the conceptual foundation of knowledge, you should help them implement that knowledge through practice.

Remember: striving for perfection is out of the question when you’re teaching your kids something. Don’t put too much pressure on them and don’t require impossible achievements. Essay writing is a very useful skill that will increase their vocabulary and improve their skills of grammar, so you should approach the teaching process with those humble goals on your mind.

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Interesting infographic how to write an argumentative essay http://www.essay-profy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/how_to_write_essay.png

very helpful. Thank you

Before essay writing my son always looks for examples. Is it bad?

very helpful. Thanks

Wow–Seems like this is a rewrite of this article: http://betsydewey.com/how-to-teach-your-kids-to-write-essays/

There are different writing courses online that can truly provide parents and kids interactive education in terms of writing, grammar and comprehension; doing different types of literary pieces can really give voices to their creative minds and opening an opportunity for their growth. Helpful article!

Very informative blog. To know more essay writing tips and the services they offer, go through this link http://www.essaydynamics.com/

You are a wonder mom! It’s hard to teach kids nowadays. You need a lot of patience. But your task would not be so hard if you’re enjoying and make rapport on your kids. Essay writing may be difficult to understand by a kid at early age. However, it will help to them to develop their writing skills PS: https://wedoessay.com/

Very useful, thanks! Yes, practice is the best approach. But I disagree that essay writing skills is compulsory for everybody. What about tech specializations, if child is a fan of math and physics it’s not good to enforce him to write an essay. Let him do what he want!

Actually, being a fan of maths and physics means you will probably need essay-writing skills MORE. My brother is an engineer, and he just got through telling me how lack of proper organisation and correct language on reports has cost his company thousands of dollars on several occasions. I think we make the mistake of assigning humanities skills only to the humanities and science skills only to the science-driven professions. I work in foreign languages, and these days an engineer. doctor or scientist is as likely (if not more likely) to need a foreign language as a mid-level businessperson. Similarly, engineers, doctors and scientists write many reports both internally and for worldwide consumption. They often have to make presentations, which are based on the same base skills as essay-writing.

Thanks for your article. It is true that nowadays teaching children is not an easy task. It’s not a secret that students don’t like writing essay. Visit our site to get a great range of student essays,

The opportunity to do an Extended Project should be more widespread. More importantly, universities should invest more time and effort in helping students develop the research and writing skills needed at university. There seems to be a fairly common assumption within universities that A-Levels primarily prepare students for university work. They should instead be seen for what they are: qualifications that demonstrate that a student is ready to move to the next, quite different level of education, which will require quite different kinds of learning support.

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6 ways to improve a college essay

by: Carol Lloyd | Updated: February 9, 2023

Print article

If your high school senior is anything like mine, then they may have a handful of college essays in various states of undress. One is a daydream in search of an idea, others are dutiful outlines, two are actual drafts. Not a single one of them is ready for submission — not even close.

But that’s not what my daughter thinks. To her, her second drafts are “ready” and her first drafts are “close.”

The good news is that she’s got time. The bad news is that she doesn’t know how much work lies ahead. Unless your child goes to a high school with a particularly rigorous approach to writing, college essays are probably your teen’s first encounter with the woes and wonders of extensive rewriting .

So how can you nudge your child to keep working on those “final drafts”? Start by encouraging your teen to reread their “final” draft for these six things. And remember to give your child lots and lots of props for their continued effort. In this day and age, it’s tough being a college applicant. Let your teen know you admire all their hard work.

Begin with a bang

To be or (preferably) not to be, make it sticky with the five senses, add sweet morsels, balance bravado, don’t summarize. instead, push boundaries, homes nearby.

Homes for rent and sale near schools

How our schools are (and aren't) addressing race

The truth about homework in America

What should I write my college essay about?

What the #%@!& should I write about in my college essay?

Yes! Sign me up for updates relevant to my child's grade.

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Deductions for individuals: The difference between standard and itemized deductions, and what they mean

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A deduction reduces the amount of a taxpayer's income that's subject to tax, generally reducing the amount of tax the individual may have to pay. Most taxpayers now qualify for the standard deduction, but there are some important details involving itemized deductions that people should keep in mind.

Standard deduction

The standard deduction is a specific dollar amount that reduces the amount of taxable income. The standard deduction consists of the sum of the basic standard deduction and any additional standard deduction amounts for age and/or blindness.

In general, the IRS adjusts the standard deduction each year for inflation. It varies by filing status, whether the taxpayer is 65 or older and/or blind and whether another taxpayer can claim them as a dependent.

Taxpayers cannot take the standard deduction if they itemize their deductions. Taxpayers can refer to Topic no. 501, Should I itemize?  for more information.

Itemized deductions

Some taxpayers choose to itemize their deductions if their allowable itemized deductions total is greater than their standard deduction. Other taxpayers must itemize deductions because they aren't entitled to use the standard deduction.

Taxpayers who must itemize deductions include:

• A married individual filing as married filing separately whose spouse itemizes deductions.
• An individual who was a nonresident alien or dual status alien during the year (some exceptions apply).
• An individual who files a return for a period of less than 12 months due to a change in his or her annual accounting period.
• An estate or trust, common trust fund or partnership.

Schedule A (Form 1040) for itemized deductions

Taxpayers use Schedule A ( Form 1040, Itemized Deductions or 1040-SR, U.S. Tax Return for Seniors ) to figure their itemized deductions. In most cases, their federal income tax owed will be less if they take the larger of their itemized deductions or standard deduction.

Taxpayers can review the instructions for Schedule A (Form 1040), Itemized Deductions, to calculate their itemized deductions, such as certain medical and dental expenses, and amounts paid for certain taxes, interest, contributions and other expenses. Taxpayers may also deduct certain casualty and theft losses on Schedule A.

Interactive Tax Assistant can help with deduction questions

The Interactive Tax Assistant (ITA) provides answers to tax law questions based on a taxpayer's individual circumstances. It can help a taxpayer determine the answer to common questions, such as if they:

• Must file a tax return.
• Have the correct filing status.
• Can claim a dependent.
• Have taxable income.
• Are eligible to claim a credit.
• Can deduct expenses.

The ITA can help taxpayers with these deduction-related questions:

• How much is my standard deduction?
• Can I claim a deduction for student loan interest?
• Can I deduct my moving expenses?
• How do I claim my gambling winnings and/or losses?
• Can I deduct my medical and dental expenses?
• Can I deduct my mortgage-related expenses?
• Can I deduct my charitable contributions?
• Can I claim my expenses as miscellaneous itemized deductions on Schedule A?
• Can I deduct personal taxes that I pay as an itemized deduction on Schedule A?
• Are my work-related education expenses deductible?
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