Three Easy Ways Parents Can Improve Their Children's Writing Assignments

Engaging with your child's education can be one of the most rewarding things you do as a parent. With plenty of pressures on middle schoolers—from homework to social life—writing can feel like a mountain to climb. Thankfully, parents can play a crucial role in making this journey easier and even enjoyable. Here are three easy steps to boost your middle schooler's writing skills.

1. Check Capitalization

Checking for proper capitalization is single-handedly one of the easiest and most impactful ways in which to help improve the quality and presentation of your child's writing.

Any middle school teacher will tell you that they spend a large majority of their grading time pointing out and correcting capitalization errors; such as the use of the lower case when it comes to titles, names, places, dates (calendar titles), and the pronoun "I".

Start by reminding your child of the capitalization rules during the writing process. After their draft is complete, review sentences together, focusing on where capitalization is needed. You can also ask your child to read their writing aloud to you while paying close attention to titles, names, places, dates, and the pronoun "I". Often, students are the first to catch a capitalization error during a proof-read of their work.

Another strategy you can employ is to have your child highlight the titles, names, places, dates, and the pronoun "I" within their writing. This strategy forces them to take a close look at their potential errors, and make the corrections themselves. It also reduces the time it takes for parents to assess their kids' writing by allowing them to make quick identifications and provide clear feedback.

2. Tackle Run-Ons

Run-on sentences are another big misstep of middle school writers. Run-on sentences occur when writers try to fit multiple ideas into one sentence without proper punctuation and/or structure. In some cases, students will forego punctuation altogether and write a "paragraph" that is nothing more than one, long, run-on sentence. Yikes!

Start with encouraging your child to limit each sentence to ONE subject and ONE verb. This is a more rudimentary writing approach, but absolutely necessary if students struggle with run-on sentences. Feeling unsure about your subject - verb knowledge? No problem. Instead, use the phrases "who" and "what" and make sure your child limits each to one per sentence.

Encourage your child to read their writing aloud. This can help them hear awkward pauses, signaling where sentences might need to be split with a comma, conjunction, comma-conjunction combo, or ending punctuation. To make it fun, it can become a game: take turns reading and acting like detectives looking for run-ons.

Lastly, make sure your child ends each sentence with an appropriate punctuation mark. In most cases, this will be a period.

3. Reduce "Filler Words"

In their quest to meet word counts for assignments, many students grossly overuse "filler words" like “really,” “very,” “just," and "then" to name a few. While it seems harmless, this can dilute their writing and make it less impactful.

Here is another instance in which the highlighting strategy can be highly effective. Have students highlight or underline ANY unnecessary words giving careful consideration to the culprits listed above. This awareness not only strengthens their writing but challenges them to remove unnecessary words or replace fillers with stronger vocabulary.

Transform this into a game by presenting a sentence filled with fluff and having your child rewrite it simply and clearly. An example might be: “He is very happy that he just finished his homework.” could become, “He is excited he finished his homework.”

Final Thoughts

Supporting middle schoolers in developing strong writing skills can be straightforward. By focusing on capitalization, addressing run-on sentences, and reducing filler words, parents can make a considerable impact on their child’s final writing products. Remember, too, that teachers often supplement writing assignments with rubrics, writing guides, and models. Be sure you and your child are making the most of these supports as you work together to craft writing masterpieces!