Being able to write well will pave the way for a smooth and fruitful learning journey! Toddlers as young as two years can start to trace letters with sticks in sand with an adult’s guidance, or do some skywriting in time with music and rhyme. Once a toddler is able to hold a pen, we can start to teach him or her how to write, with a healthy dose of patience and lots of encouragement.

We’ve put together some pointers on how you can help your child to write better, categorised according to different age groups. Start off with a healthy dose of patience and throw in lots of encouragement. Most importantly, have fun!

2-4 years old
For this age group, using handwriting worksheets that they can trace is a great way improve their fine motor skills and introduce them to the different letter shapes. See that they follow the correct sequence of keystrokes, and be free with praise and encouragement when they trace each letter accurately. Children in this age group often love to colour – let them colour the accompanying shapes or pictures on a handwriting worksheet can be a nice bonus after the writing is done

This is also a good time to show your child that words can be strung together to create ideas and interesting stories. At this age, your child may already be verbalising a lot of words though he or she is yet to associate them with the written form. Make up fun sentences and descriptions, and ask your child to fill in the blanks, for example: The lady is wearing a happy fruity hat! Can you see the big yellow bananas, juicy oranges, round shiny grapes, and ___________on it?' Your child can add in the names of more fruits and suggest appropriate adjectives, and you can show your child how these words are written. Then, you can get your child to trace the words and end off with some funny drawings to accompany the sentences.

5-8 years old
At this age, many children start to be independent readers, and there is really no sustitute for reading and MORE reading to build up a good vocabulary and for greater exposure to different types of writing. Now your child can start to write stories based on various themes and scenarios. You can make use of real-life situations or fantasy scenarios. A good way is to start with scenarios that your child may be familiar with- a trip to the beach, an incident at the mall etc, and then move on to hypothetical scenarios such as 'If I were a Superhero for a day', 'If I could go back in time' etc. You can also use interesting pictures from newspapers, magazines, storybooks and even the web as 'triggers' - 'What do you think is happening in this story?' Take time to go through each story and discuss how the various parts of the story can be improved e.g. the introduction, the body, the conclusion etc. Give ideas on how to make the stories more interesting through the use of different adjectives and literary elements (see our article on Telling Tales the A+ Way)

9-12 years old
By this age, your child may have a number of favourite books or stories. Ask him or her to make up alternative endings to these, or suggest a totally different context for a well-loved story that will change everything - from the resulting plot and outcome to little details such as names, places and events. For example, what if the Harry Potter series was set in Singapore? What kind of school would he go too, and what would be the names of his friends? What are some of the places they would frequent, and what would a typical spell sound like? This could be a fun exercise that would not only improve your child's vocabulary and writing skills, but also his or her's imagination and ingenuity

Do you have other tips to share on how to help children write better? Do share them with us.