In the primary grades (1-3) students are introduced to writing a friendly letter.
You can help your child write a friendly letter by focusing on prewriting, writing, and editing techniques.
Prewriting - Your child should choose a recipient (unless they are already given one by their teacher). He/she should choose someone they feel comfortable with so that he or she will not feel shy and write more freely. Have your child gather all the ideas required for a letter.
Your child can write about the following:
·describe a personal event or accomplishment
·tell about a recent book, movie, or magazine
·share a story of a situation
·ask questions to find out how the recipient is doing
2. Writing - Your child should begin by writing a paragraph for each idea on their list. If your child is only writing about one idea, he/she should break down the idea into sub-topics. For example, let's say your child wants to write about a certain event that happened on the weekend. Your child can write about the events leading up to the situation, the situation itself, and what happened after the situation.
3. Editing - Your child should check for punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and overall format of the letter. Have your child check over each of these separately. That is, don't have your child start reading and look for spelling, punctuation, and
capitalization at the same time. This is overwhelming! Start off with spelling, for example, and then edit the others.
By helping your child at home, he or she will improve his or her friendly letter writing skills.
