cover image Your Child's Writing Life: How to Inspire Confidence, Creativity, and Skill at Every Age

Your Child's Writing Life: How to Inspire Confidence, Creativity, and Skill at Every Age

Pam Allyn. Avery, $16 trade paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-5833-3439-3

Executive director of LitLife and LitWorld and author (What to Read When), Allyn asserts that writing fosters children's emotional growth, helps them develop critical thinking skills, and guarantees improved academic achievement. In this book she helps parents understand why writing is so critical and how they can guide their children through the writing process. Allyn explains that children are naturally drawn to the power of words and stories. Walking readers through the developmental stages of a child's writing life, she provides plenty of ideas for nourishing a child's writing, with activities for each age and stage from birth to 12 (ranging from reading aloud and imaginative play to keeping a writer's notebook or writing a flip camera movie script). Writing, the author says, gives kids a voice, provides an outlet for thoughts and feelings, and offers a form of sanctuary. Allyn emphasizes the parent's role as a guide in a child's growth as both reader and writer, noting that the early childhood years are crucial for literacy development. She also includes a useful chapter on books that inspire writing, as well as a chapter called "What to Write When" with prompts and techniques for curing writer's block. (Aug.)