Every parent wants to know what they can do to support their children, and your role as a parent cannot be understated, despite how amazing your child’s school, teacher or tutor is. Here are some tips on how you can support your kids at home, learn self-reflective techniques and gain more confidence.

Don’t worry about making it perfect! Students often don’t get started because they’re concerned with getting the answer wrong or not making it perfect. Encourage them to just start and keep going until they see where they end up.

Reading their own work, or explaining their process aloud, is a great way for them to reflect on what they wrote, helping them improve their own work themselves. Ask questions like ‘what do you think of it’ ‘what effort do you think you put in there’ and ‘can you hear anything that can be fixed?’. 

Ask open questions rather than giving them the answer. For example, if they read a passage, ask them things like ‘what do you think the writer is trying to say here?’ ‘what techniques are they using to do that?’ 

Encouragement makes a WORLD of difference with students, even if they pretend it doesn’t! Just saying things like “well done” and “great try”, without always correcting something will help them keep trying, rather than worrying it’s not perfect. If you always tell them what needs fixing every time, it can diminish the encouragement you give. 

If you want more information on working with your children to improve their writing so they gain more confidence, check out my video here.