At Adirondack Learning Academy, even with our comprehensive online curriculum which includes essay writing, we encourage students to develop their writing skills outside of the expectations of the course requirements. One way to do this is through the use of writing prompts.
What are writing prompts?
Writing prompts offer story starters or ideas to jumpstart writing. Through expressive creativity, your child can have fun writing and expressing themselves on a daily basis.
Writing prompts give direction. This direction encourages the child who cannot think of something to write about.
Writing prompts differ from writing essays to meet a course requirement. This type of writing is meant for the parent to add to the homeschool day as a method for developing writing skills which is not graded. Another way to look at it is journaling on a daily basis.
How are writing prompts used in homeschool?
Even with a structured curriculum, your child may be asked to write an essay on a topic of their choice. You can guide him/her towards a topic. No matter the subject, there’s a prompt for it!
Writing prompts can coincide with the topic being presented in the curriculum. For example, if your child is learning about persuasive essays, give a writing prompt for that day which encourages implementing what was learned.
Writing is a process, therefore, writing prompts allow your child to practice their writing, make mistakes and improve upon spelling and grammar without the pressure of being graded.
Here is a writing prompt to get you started....If I had a time machine, I would..... As a homeschool parent, you will love using writing prompts to share ideas. Get creative with topics and keep writing because the written word is a never ending source of magic!