The Writing Habit
Last month a post on the Why Homeschool blog led me to implement a very simple learning technique in my son's homeschooling lessons.
After we discuss a subject, I have him write a short paragraph in his notebook about what he just learned. There are no right or wrong answers, and I never give him instructions other than "Write what you learned."
I'm finding this to be a powerful memory enhancer for my son, and it's helping him to better understand certain concepts. We used to just discuss what he'd learned, but putting pencil to paper seems to be more fulfilling to him. Another plus is that it helps develop his writing and communication skills.
You don't have to be a homeschooler to do this with your kids. Buy them a notebook, and a couple of times a week ask them to write a paragraph or two on something interesting they learned in school. Help your kids start the writing habit. Hey, pretty soon they'll be ready for blogging!
After we discuss a subject, I have him write a short paragraph in his notebook about what he just learned. There are no right or wrong answers, and I never give him instructions other than "Write what you learned."
I'm finding this to be a powerful memory enhancer for my son, and it's helping him to better understand certain concepts. We used to just discuss what he'd learned, but putting pencil to paper seems to be more fulfilling to him. Another plus is that it helps develop his writing and communication skills.
You don't have to be a homeschooler to do this with your kids. Buy them a notebook, and a couple of times a week ask them to write a paragraph or two on something interesting they learned in school. Help your kids start the writing habit. Hey, pretty soon they'll be ready for blogging!
Permalink posted by Phil at 1:05 AM
12 Comments:
Our son is three and we are planting seeds for this. When my husband gets home from work they sit down for "questions." Damon journals keyword about Fuller's day (starting with what day it is) and then Fuller spells them. It helps with letter recognition and event recall. And it has become a fun ritual at the end of the day.
This is timely - we just started teaching them how to 'blog' as part of their journalism. They get to blog a photo to our family blog every day if they want to. They are excited and hopefully this will help with writing.
I totally agree. I'm just waiting until Seth is old enough to really write things out. Soon, very soon.
My husband and I were joking with our kids earlier in the week about them starting their own blogs (they are 6 and 4) because they see us working on ours. We entertained the thought of creating a photo blog (a picture a day) since they both love to sneak away with the digital camera.
Excellent idea. Teaching kids to learn to love writing is a great thing.
Great idea. It also gives you a little insight as to what kids actually get out of a lesson. It isn't always what you were teaching.
Being able to write down what your thinking and feeling is a wonderful life tool. They will be able to sort out their thoughts long after they leave the nest.It helps with decision making too listing pro's -cons. Awesome Phil!
This is such a great idea and I wonder why we were never asked to do it more in school. Even now, I know that in order to retain any info I read from any book I need to write what I "absorbed" from it. I certainly plan to do this with my daughter. You don't think 19 months old is too young, do ya?
That's a good idea, thanks.
I love this idea. Not only will it help my daughter to internalize what she's just learned, but it will help her penmanship as well. I'm trying to be more about combining learning to decrease the workbook drills.
That is a great technique! Something about the act of transferring knowledge from our heads to paper cements it in place. I know I always did better in classes where I took my own copious notes (as opposed to having notes passed out to us.)
I always enjoy coming back to visit your blog. It is amazing how readers keep the information by writing paragraphs. I call it "showing your thinking". I am also amazed how it helps them as they go back later and review those paragraphs.Great strategy!
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