10 Ways To Inspire Your Child To Write

1. Read to your child or make sure he or she spends time reading every day. Not only does reading help her get used to using her imagination, but it also improves her vocabulary by introducing her to new words.

2. Tell your child made-up stories. Seeing you using your imagination to come up with interesting stories for him helps inspire him to do the same.

3. Play story-telling games with your child. Start by saying one line of a story, and have the next person continue the story by coming up with the second line, and the third person has to come up with the third line. If this proves too difficult, each person can come up with a paragraph instead of a line each. This is a great way to stimulate your child’s creativity and get her thinking about the things that make up a good story.

4. Have your child and some of his or her friends write poems and make it a contest. Make sure they don’t put their names on the poems, and then collect the poems into a pile. Read the poems out loud, one by one, and tell them all they can vote for one poem, other than their own, that they thought was the best one. Then tabulate the votes and the winner gets a treat, like a candy bar, a sticker or a new notebook (depending on what you can afford to give and how old your child is). Do this once a week, at the same time each week, because knowing that it is coming up will have them all thinking about their poem throughout the week.

5. Get your child a library card. As in the first point above, reading is important for your child if she is going to develop the ability to write. Reading a variety of stories and books, as a library card will allow, will help her to become familiar with different writing voices and styles.

6. Self-publish his stories and drawings so that he can hold a physical book of his own creation in his hands. This can be done through places like Amazon’s CreateSpace, Lulu.com and Blurb, Inc. Or you can create the book by hand using your printer and the right materials. If you are completely lost on how to create the book, use a service such as Your Kids’ Creations. Having a physical book of his own words and drawings that he can hold, read and share with others inspires a confidence in his own writing that is hard to capture in other ways. This confidence will inspire him to write more.

7. Do some writing yourself. Seeing a parent take writing seriously and spend time writing emphasizes the importance of writing in a child’s mind. It’s a case of leading by example.

8. Have your child write and illustrate a poem. This helps show your child the connection between the beauty in words and the beauty in the world around her. It helps to make the connection that you are painting a picture with words when writing. As an extra step, you can even put her masterpiece on a mug, poster or magnet at Zazzle.com for her to keep as a physical reminder that she can create beauty with her writing, or just to show her how proud you are of her work.

9. Help your child create a newsletter. Let him take pictures of his friends or other things with a digital camera, or provide him with pictures if a digital camera is not available, and he can write stories about sports he loves, games he plays with his friends, or just interesting news about his friends and family that he’d like to share. Help him put it all together in a newsletter format. Print up several copies and he can hand them out to his friends and family members. He can even let his friends participate in the newsletter by contributing stories to it.

10. Let your child have his or her own blog or use other social media outlets. With the proper supervision, writing for her own blog or keeping in touch with her friends through other social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook can really help inspire your child to reach for even greater creativity. Using a blog source such as Blogger.com makes it easy for her to choose a template and set up her own blog (though, depending on her age, she might need your help), and you can set it to not allow comments or to only allow comments after they’ve been moderated by you. She can share her writing of stories and poetry as well as her drawings and even simple journal entries in her blog. The blog can be set to private or public and you can monitor it to the extent that you think is necessary. Facebook and Twitter accounts can also be set to private and you can only allow them to authorize friends you know, but this frees them to chat freely and be creative with their friends.

There are many ways to inspire creativity and a love for writing in your child. Even as simple a thing as writing a letter to his or her grandparents can help bring out the creative writer in your child. It’s up to you to encourage your children and to lead by example in their lives. If you put importance on writing in your life, your child will see it as important too.

Inspiring Gabby

Every year since my daughter Gabriella was three years old, I have created books using stories she has dictated to me and drawings that she has created while at each age. When she turned four, I took all the things she had "written" and many things she had drawn at the age of three and made her a book called "Dreams of Three." When she turned five, I took all the things she had "written" and many of her drawings done while she was four and made her a book called "Dreams of Four." Now that she is six, it is time for me to put together her "Dreams of Five" book.

For the first two years that I did this for her, she had dictated 12 stories each year to me. I am not sure we got that many stories this year though. We might have eight stories. I guess it just means that the book will cost me less to buy once it's created. I wish I had put in the time to have her tell me more stories this year though. She has a wonderful imagination that is growing each year. And it wouldn't even have been that much effort on my part. 12 stories is only one story a month, and her stories are usually only a paragraph or two long.

The thing that is great about creating these books is that the books inspire her to continue to think creatively. They also help her see the value in reading and writing. They also help her feel proud of her accomplishment (she loves showing them off to others), and they are a wonderful memento for the years to come. They also make great presents for her grandparents.

I publish them at Lulu.com, and Gabby offers them for sale there with color interiors and for sale in the children's art section of my Cafe Press shop Fyfe Photography & Design with black and white interiors. She's even sold some, which makes her very excited each time it happens! They are for sale at Moonduster Books. (Eventually, the children's stories that I am writing will be available there too.)

Ideas

Last year, I thought up a children's story for my daughter Gabby. She was five at the time, but I still have not finished the story, because I'm stuck on how to illustrate it. I have no artistic talent when it comes to drawing or painting.

Yesterday, I got a great idea for another children's story to write for my 3 year old daughter Bella. Again, I am faced with the problem of how to illustrate it.

I am going to try to get my husband to set aside some time to try and illustrate the children's stories, because, unlike me, he does have some talent in that area.

I just wish I could get these stories and illustrations finished in time for me to self-publish and buy them as Christmas gifts for my two girls.