Several times this month, Fiona Brill and her five year old son have walked to the nearby Primary School. There they play on the monkey-bars, eat a picnic lunch and try out all the drinking taps to discover which ones work - and which ones spray water everywhere. Fiona points out the classroom Nicky will be in this year and the bench she will sit on, when it is time to collect him. In just a...
When is a child ready for school - or not? For the parents of Rhonda, the decision is easy. Rhonda will be 5.5 years of age at the start of the school year, she is tall and sporting with strong social skills. Similarly, Peter's parents have no real decision to make. Peter can already read dozens of words, he is independent and confident for his age. He too will be going to school.
Yet many...
Here are the seven advanced techniques authors use to make a story powerful. Share this quick quiz to see which skills your kids use and to see what a difference practising writing in small 'chunks' can make...
TOPIC: A Boy, a Bear and a Lucky Escape
Plan for Success: Which plan is better?
a) We went to the zoo and a bear got loose and chased Jeremy.
b) We went to the zoo and a bear...
Would you waste money on an opera ticket for this guy?
'Of course I love opera,' he said, foot tapping restlessly.
Research has shown that the old adage is true: Actions (such as a foot tapping) do speak louder than words. So when we write, we should 'show' with actions, not 'tell' with words.
Kids like to state outright: 'Michael was in a bad mood.' However to make it convincing they...
Young writers tend to start their stories where they are 'comfortable', for instance:
* at the start of the day. ('I woke up that morning...')
* at the beginning of the school holidays. ('It was the first day of...')
* or on the bus going to the zoo. ('We all piled into the bus and...')
It's called warm up writing and often it becomes a habit they don't know how to break.
...
If you got a dollar for every time you told your kids to plan their writing, you'd be living on a tropical island now, right? The only trouble is, it's hard to show children HOW to plan.
We've all seen examples of poor planning:
* Movies that have great starts, terrific characters, fascinating plots - and an ending which is flatly disappointing.
* Books that get bogged down with 57...
Imagine spending all Saturday afternoon weeding a garden, only to have someone say: 'That's great, but you missed a few weeds there and you didn't put away the ladder.' Not very supportive is it?
Yet, sometimes, that's what we do when kids ask us to read their story. We concentrate on the mistakes: 'That's nice dear, but you've spelt "elephant" wrong on the second page...'
Learning is...
'You're too early.' This is probably not a phrase we use much with our kids. Wouldn't we love it if they started studying for exams, packing for trips and planning Christmas presents early?
However, when it comes to writing, kids often start early - and it is NOT a good idea. It probably means their writing moves too slowly and is full of padding. Here are three examples:
1) Story Starts...
An alien, reading the stories of our primary school kids would be very puzzled. Did the human parents starve their offspring - all the small human children ever seemed to write about was food? Obviously travelling was a huge excitement for the humans too. Bus trips and car trips featured frequently in the small human's writing. While beds clearly had a mystical quality in human civilization -...
When you pick up a book, you usually do three things: you look at the cover; read the blurb on the back and you read the first paragraph to see if you like it.
As an author, you often don't have much control over (1) the book cover or (2) the blurb, BUT every writer knows that a sizzling story start is vital! And that you can control. That first paragraph has to grab the reader's attention...
