Good Writing – How Do I Know If My Child’s Writing is Good?

By Stuart Ackerman

     This is a tough question, especially since writing is graded subjectively.

     As a parent, it is hard to determine if your child’s writing would be considered ‘good’.  School boards and districts vary, and teachers’ teaching experiences vary as well.  There are other factors that are involved when determining the quality of a piece of writing.

     By being aware of the elements of what would be considered a ‘good’ piece of writing; you can help your child improve his or her writing skills.

• Mechanic needed.  Check for the simple mechanics in your child’s writing.  Work with your child and teach him or her how to find common mistakes such as: punctuation, spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. 

• Go online.  You can easily go online to your state or provincial government’s curriculum website.  Government education websites contain the ‘content standards’ or ‘curriculum expectations’ for every subject in every grade.  Simply go to the ‘Writing’ strand, find your child’s grade level, and find the specific content standard or expectation that relates to your child’s piece of writing.  For example, let’s say your child is doing a report on whales.  You can go to your government’s education website and find exactly what is required of your child.

• Paint a Picture.  Good writing contains ideas, concepts and words that are clear and descriptive.  Regardless of the type of writing piece (e.g. report, personal narrative essay), your child should use descriptive words (a good thesaurus helps) that help describe and explain exactly what your child is trying to write about.

• Just like in the Army.   The army is a place that has order and organization.  Your child’s writing must be the same.  Ideas should be expressed clearly.  Paragraphs should be organized properly (i.e. the sentences in the paragraph as well as the position of the paragraphs in the essay), unnecessary words and sentences should be omitted, and introductions and conclusions must be in their proper places.

     By making sure that your child has these writing features intact, you will definitely increase his or her chances on getting better writing grades.

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