Helping Your Child With Their Essay Writing Skills

Essay writing is an important skill that children will use throughout their academic life and may even crop up in adulthood depending on their chosen career path. Whether your child has a knack for words or struggles with writing in general, writing an essay can be a pretty daunting undertaking. To help make things easier, I’ve teamed up with an independent school in Merseyside who have provided their top tips to help your child hone their essay writing skills. 

Master the Basics 

Once your child has the basics nailed, they’ll find essay writing a whole lot easier. Make sure they have a good understanding of sentence structure, paragraphs and grammar, as this will set them off down the right path. Reading journals and other essays will familiarise them with appropriate writing styles and allow them to form an idea of what an essay should look like. You could even have them practice writing short essays based on topics they’re familiar with to get them started. 

Know The Subject 

Writing an essay about something you know little to nothing about will most likely prove to be a fruitless endeavour. Your child will need to have a solid foundation of knowledge before they start writing, otherwise they might very quickly run out of things to say. If the topic is opinion based or referring to a personal opinion it may still help to bullet point things they wish to cover. This will help to keep their writing relevant and concise. 

Make a Plan 

Staring at a blank page can be pretty unnerving, especially when you don’t know where to start or where you want the words to take you. Making an easy plan will make the process much easier and will give your child a clear structure to follow. Have them write down all their ideas and then start to organise them into paragraphs, they can then bullet point anything they’d like to include in an introduction and conclusion. Not only will this help them to organise their points into a traditional essay format, it will also give them prompts and ideas along the way should they start to get writers’ block as their essay unfolds.

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