Many parents are interested in writing tutoring in order to enrich their kids’ writing skills. The purpose of this blog is to help inform and inspire parents with content that will help their children achieve all their academic goals. Below you will find some ideas to help get you started with incorporating writing skills into every day life.
With the adoption of Common Core Skills, writing tutoring and subsequently writing skills are taught differently than in the past. Rather than being approached as a stand-alone subject, students are being asked to write in a variety of contexts that span across the curriculum. The concept that writing is a useful and valuable skill can be reinforced by incorporating it into day-to-day situations . Children’s writing skills can be enriched by creating an environment where the written word is given lots of time, space and energy.
This can be done many different ways – here are some examples of ways parents can help their kids become better writers.
Start out by establishing a place for writing in the home. Creating a writer’s nook or clearing off a desk creates an inviting atmosphere.
Make sure your kid has all the writing materials they need, such pens and journals. If your student has already mastered basic penmanship skills and has a preference for typing, consider giving him or her a keyboard attachment to convert any tablet into a writing machine!
Share holiday cards with your children and encourage them to participate in letter or email writing to communicate with family and friends.
Teach your kids how to write birthday cards and thank you cards. This skill helps them express their emotions towards a loved one or articulate gratitude. It is a great habit beyond the merits of enriching their writing abilities. Additionally, it is a wonderful opportunity for your kids to get creative and decorate the card.
On the subject of art making, when children create images or sculptures, help them to write out captions or stories that explain their ideas.
Even something as simple as asking for help drafting a grocery list on your phone can be a method of working on writing. Autocorrect allows them to learn the right spelling without parents having to identify mistakes, and corresponding emojis can make this chore a little more fun.
Surround your child with interesting and engaging books. Make sure he or she has lots of age-appropriate reading material. Embrace apps such as Kindle or Libby to read on tablets or other devices. Take your kids to the library and download whatever apps your local library has so they can access new material and check out books virtually. Besides incorporating technology, which is appealing to many kids, books are automatically returned on their due date. This means no more hunting down missing books or being charged late fees!
Talk about books or articles together. It is a crucial verbal component that helps children develop and articulate their ideas.
When you are working with your child, keep the feedback light and positive. If he or she perceives writing as an opportunity to be corrected or reprimanded over and over, naturally the idea will be less appealing than if you take an encouraging, strengths-based approach. Look for progress, not perfection.
Make it fun and relevant to your child! Tie writing back to your child’s interests and you will be on your way to enriching your kids‘ writing skills from the start.
Are you looking for a Manhattan Beach writing tutor? Look no further! Writing essays is one of the hardest tasks for students. They wonder: where do I put the thesis? What’s the purpose of a topic sentence? What goes in my conclusion? Why do I need a hook? Why can’t my hook be a rhetorical question? (E.g., Have you ever been stranded on a desert island?) What’s an anchor?If you struggle with these simple questions, perhaps a Study Hut Tutoring session in writing is the solution.
Most students don’t hesitate to get help with their math or science homework, but writing is often overlooked. Having an expert Manhattan Beach writing tutor on the team helps immensely. Writing is one of the most important academic skills. Study Hut provides a great space for students to improve their writing. In a typical session, we start by reviewing the prompt in detail. We also look at the rubric (how students will be assessed) and all supplementary materials (e.g., outline, text, handouts). It’s important to bring your book and class handouts for our study session!
One of the problems students face is that English teachers teach writing differently. One teacher may be a huge fan of quotation hooks, while another teacher may hate them with a passion. Tutors encourage students to carefully consider their teacher’s writing preferences. We ask questions about what students have learned, and how they will be graded. Study Hut tutors tailor each session to the needs of the student as well as the expectations of the teacher.
The thesis statement is usually the most important part of our tutoring sessions, and it’s the heart of the essay. We help students develop a solid argument for their essay that clearly maps out the rest of the paragraphs. The part of the thesis that most students ignore is the theme. Even though theme isn’t a requirement of the thesis, it often relates to the deeper meaning. Themes can be tricky. But once we point them out, students are able to understand the prompt in a much deeper way.
It’s easy to put the focus on grammatical errors, but it’s the ideas that often need the most attention. We’ve all been on the other side of the dreaded red pen. However, the items that typically need the most attention include: organization, flow, sequence of arguments, and clarity of ideas. Most students struggle with what to write in each part of the essay. Once we demystify the structure, writing becomes a much more logical process. Writing tutoring is a great opportunity for students to improve their writing skills.
Getting extra help with writing gives students a leg up in high school, college, and beyond. Many teachers, professors, and employers complain that their students and employees don’t know how to write. Writing is a powerful skill that can make your son or daughter stand out.
Manhattan Beach Study Hut can only help with essay writing if…
Your essay is due tomorrow
Your essay is due next week
You dread the thought of essays—none are due…yet
All of the above
Answer:
All of the above!
Manhattan Beach Study Hut can help you at any time with your essay writing, for any reason. Not everyone is born a great writer, and even if you were, there is always room for improvement. Already have sweet writing skills? We knew people in college who STILL couldn’t figure out how to structure their bibliography in the proper format—even if their ideas in the essay were beautiful, those citation errors would cost them a whole letter grade. P.S. If you don’t know what a bibliography is, you might want to stop by Manhattan Beach Study Hut for a citation refresher session! Teachers are picky with that stuff.
Anyway, oftentimes you have all these ideas in your head and just need someone to help get yourself started. A Manhattan Beach Study Hut Essay Writing tutor (say that five times fast) will ask you for a quick rundown of your teacher’s grading style, your prompt, your class, your history with essays—anything to help us get a handle on your needs. Once we understand how your final draft should look, we’ll make a game plan for you to get there.
No matter how much we get done within the session, we want you to be able to leave knowing how to finish your essay. One of the most useful tools a Study Hut tutor offers in essay writing is the construction of an outline. An outline may look like more work, but it makes the writing process infinitely easier. It organizes your topics, ideas, and evidence, at the same timeproviding a checklist to make ensure you met the assignment requirements. Completing the checklist equals full point and maybe even getting on your English teacher’s good side. Did I hear college recommendation? No? Just me, I guess.
We have been there. You know your student is bright, and you know they’re trying their best, but that just doesn’t translate when you or their teachers read their work. You can tell they have the right idea, but that idea is hidden behind incorrect spelling, poor grammar, and sentence structure that even you know is wrong. Whether they need help outlining an essay, drafting a presentation or just editing their final project paper, a Manhattan Beach English tutor at Study Hut is here for them.
A Study Hut English tutor is itching to help out your student. Having been through countless writing blocks of college-level research papers, essays, and even dreaded poetic prose projects ourselves, we understand what your child is going through. The process is sometimes overwhelming. Sometimes you think, “Well, I’m good at math, so I’m just not going to get English.” Not true. They don’t have to win the Pulitzer Prize to be considered a good writer! Each Manhattan Beach English Tutor at Study Hut believes every student can get to a point in their writing skills where they feel comfortable with any English work they produce.
In the classroom, memorization is king. Writing itself is a very singular process, and when they are assigned a take-home essay suddenly they are on their own to apply what they learned in school. Having a one-on-one English tutor will make writing assignments less daunting. They now have someone to bounce their ideas off of, and share their drafts with no judgment. We want to help build a solid foundation of writing skills for your student to be able to write well in any situation.
We will sit down with your student and do a quick diagnostic of what they need. Once we know where the problem is, we go to work! A session in action looks like two peers discussing ideas, rephrasing, questioning to get to a deeper analysis—it’s honestly quite fun.
Thankfully, we have English tutors at every Study Hut office.
Study Hut can provide more than subject tutoring. In a Study Hut writing session, our expert, college educated tutors can boost a student’s writing skills. Writing is an essential skill that must be comprehended in order to have success in a higher level of learning. It is also an important tool that helps an individual express themselves with text. Like all skills, writing, must be practiced in order for one to be great at it.
During a Study Hut writing session, that very idea of practice is stressed. Often, the appointment will start with exercises dealing with strengthening vocabulary because building a strong vocabulary is necessary to be a good writer. This might include reading something new, finding synonyms/antonyms for given words, writing definitions, or filling in the blank with the appropriate word provided particular clues. These exercises are important because a diverse vocabulary illustrates an individual who is well versed and can express themselves clearly.
Next, the tutor may show the student examples of graded essays. Together, they will analyze the essay, critiquing the essay as a teacher would, so the student learns to be an active editor. This also shows the student what good, bad, and mediocre essays look like so they can get an idea of what to utilize and what habits to avoid.
This could be followed by a writing practice. The student is asked to respond to a prompt provided by the tutor. This activity can range from focusing on writing a proper thesis statement, to organizing a paper from intro/body/conclusion, depending on the time allowed with a certain student and their needs.
Overrall, in a Study Hut writing session there is an unwavering focus on technique and organization that will enhance the student’s ability to respond to prompts that will help them in all facets of writing.
Writing competency is a vital step towards academic success in middle school, high school, and higher education. The establishment of a comfort level with regard to essay writing is fundamental. Many students moving from middle to high school become overwhelmed when assigned their first paper. Most are even more flabbergasted when they arrive at college and are required to write term papers.
At Study Hut, our tutors work with your students to build an outline—a formula, of sorts—for a paper which we think can be applied to writing universally. This formula starts with and builds upon a thesis statement, which declares the general purpose of the essay. Thesis statement writing is too frequently overlooked in compulsory English or writing education, so many students don’t know where to begin or how to address a topic or prompt. By teaching them the simple skill of jotting down their first meaningful statement of purpose, we hope to provide students with a foundation upon which they can do nothing but grow and learn.
Young children are often overlooked when it comes to the tutoring industry. At the high school level, parents work hard to motivate and challenge their children academically. They pressure their child to work hard and get good grades at the hopes of the acceptance into a prestigious and well renowned school. Why not start at a young age?
Learning good study habits is imperative to the success of a student; not only in the school setting, but outside as well. Children need to learn study skills, reading skills, and good work ethic from the beginning. In the primary grades, students’ brains are developing at such a rapid rate that this time period proves to be the most crucial in a student’s life. By setting that foundation, the student will have a more transparent view of how to be an outstanding scholar. At study hut, we provide tutoring to all ages. In the younger grades, a student’s academics are primarily focused on literacy. We cater to children by assisting them with fluency, comprehension, and accuracy. The extra practice allows them to feel more confident and motivated in the classroom which produces overall better grades. Needless to say, extra tutoring for young students in the primary grades is extremely beneficial and should not be dismissed.
