Sometimes you can have lots of ideas for poems and stories but it’s hard to write them all down. It may be hard to hold that long pencil. You may not be able to form all the letters. You may not know how to spell words. And it can be exhausting to have to think so hard about it all. Even when you are grown up, an idea can float away before we can pin it down on paper.
Adults can write down the poems and stories that children have in their heads. It is wonderful to capture them. You can make books together. The child says the words. The adult writes them down. The child author becomes illustrator and adds some great drawings.
Write down exactly what they say.
Read back what you have written to check you have it right.
Write down what they say and not what you think they should say!
You can ask them to tell you some more.
You can ask questions sometimes – for example, if they say, ‘The tree is big.’ Write it down.If you want to ask, ‘How big?’ you can ask them, but check before you write that down. You are better to just ask them if they have more to say. You may not think that one word can make a story. But sometimes one word is all they need. Trust them!
Writing Box 