By Amy Crelly

Finals may be just around the corner, but it’s not too late to help your child make the most of the school year. Whether your student is working on a basic book report or an Honors English term paper, they’re exercising some of the same scholastic “muscles,” including reading comprehension, writing skills and critical thinking. For this reason, the same set of tips can help coach them through the process:

When in doubt, read directions.
Before he starts writing, and—if possible—before he even starts reading, have your child carefully read the writing assignment to you. Encourage him to read it again at various points in the process. This should help him focus—and stay focused—on the topic assigned. If your child is still unclear, help him form questions for his teacher.

Keep things interesting.
Writing can be challenging, but it’s much easier when you get to write about something you really care about. If the teacher has offered a choice of books to read, help your child pick one that will hold her interest. Have her sample the writing style and language of each book, preview the length of the chapters and the layout. You want her to find something that will challenge her somewhat, but not overwhelm her with unfamiliar vocabulary or passages she’ll find boring. Likewise, if your student can choose among different writing topics, encourage her to invest some time choosing carefully. Talk about the topics with her and listen for which one elicits a strong reaction.

Check in on their progress.
Discuss what your student is reading. Asking the right questions can help kids reflect on what they’re reading and prepare for the writing process. Ask: What’s going on in the story? Who are the main characters? Which characters do you like (and why)? Which do you dislike (and why is that)? What’s your favorite scene? How did you feel—or what did you think—about the ending? To avoid anxiety on the eve of the due date, help your student schedule time for reading and working on the writing assignment in the days or weeks leading up to the assignment’s due date.

Encourage brainstorming.
Staring down the blank page can be the toughest part of writing. That’s why it’s so important to give kids permission to just brainstorm. It’s the messy, free-form, wild and crazy part of writing, where you get something—anything!—down on paper, just so you can have a look at your ideas and see what you’ve got to work with. Examples of this include making lists (of events in the story, characters’ traits, etc.), timed writing, where the student just jots down ideas about what he read, without worrying about structure, spelling, grammar or any of that other stuff, “clustering,” which also works best when timed, drawing diagrams, or turning the writing prompt into a series of questions, then jotting down answers.

Give moral support (when needed)—and nothing more!
When your student starts writing her first draft, she may want to use you as a sounding board for ideas, or she may just want a patient, calm presence to help her sort through all her brainstorming pages and focus what will help her the most. Just remember that this is her assignment. She can do it. Let her make mistakes, make discoveries, grasp, grumble and experience those “aha!” moments with as little help from you as possible.

Help them check their work.
Writing a first draft can be exhausting for some kids, so the last thing they may want to do is return to the assignment for more work. But post-writing is an important part of the process and by following these few (relatively) simple steps, students can maximize their learning and even raise their grades:
1. Go back to the directions (yes—again!), and help your child check that he met all the requirements. If something is missing or barely addressed, he’ll need to revise his writing. For example, if your student is asked to “compare and contrast” a pair of characters, but his essay only addresses their differences, he’ll need to go back and add the comparisons to fulfill the whole assignment.
2. Have your child read what he wrote out loud. (Again, parents make great sounding boards!) Just listen and watch as your child catches little errors (including typos like missing or repeated words, odd-sounding phrases or unfinished thoughts) that he otherwise wouldn’t have noticed. Compliment him on these catches with something like, “Ah! Good ear!” or “Nice catch!”
3. Have your child proofread his work and check his spelling (dictionary.com is a great tool if your student loathes lugging out Webster’s). Then print out the corrected final copy to turn in. Follow-up with your student (and his teacher, if necessary) to make sure the assignment was handed in on time.

After a long day of doing your own work, I know it’s an effort to help your kids with their school work, but the payoff—in terms of their learning and the support they receive from you—really does make it worthwhile. Besides, if you can help them enough when they’re young, then hopefully these habits will one day become their own, and they’ll no longer need Mom or Dad to hold their hands through the process.

About The Author
Amy Crelly taught Language Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area for four years before moving to Sacramento. She still enjoys tutoring students and seeing those “light bulb moments” when an idea clicks.