11 Summer Journal Prompts to Help Your Kids Practice Writing
The start of school is quickly approaching, so maybe you’re starting to think of what you can do to help make the transition easier. Even if you haven’t kept a summer journal this year, spending a few minutes per day on one of these summer journal prompts can help get your child more ready for school by:
- Reflecting on their own growth over the summer to build their confidence
- Practicing writing, spelling, and reading skills that will be essential in the year ahead
- Re-introducing some “academic” work so it’s not as much of a shock come August
- And creating a fun keepsake that can help them remember this year (and have something to share with teachers and friends!)
Your Child’s Summer Journal Should Reflect Them
There’s no one-size-fits-all here! For some kids, a glittery notebook may be enough incentive to do some focused writing. For others, you may need blank space for drawing, larger lines for beginning writers, or some other fun format that can help make this project their own.
Benefits of Writing By Hand
Learning to write by hand instead of type is valuable for your child’s literacy development and overall brain function. Research shows that physically writing by hand:
- Activates the child’s brain to an adult level (and significantly more than typing does)
- Improves letter recognition, spelling, and visual tracking for reading
- Helps kids practice segmenting and blending sounds to create words (even if young kids aren’t spelling all words correctly, this is a helpful auditory processing school that improves reading and spelling fluency down the road!)
- Strengthens spelling skills and memory. The more kids see and write words themselves, the more familiar they’ll become with common spellings and patterns of spellings in language
- Boosts creativity! Writers like Stephen King and JK Rowling report that they prefer writing by hand, and research backs this up.
Summer Journal Prompts to Get Your Child Started:
Feel free to just allow your kids to free-write; the practice itself is what matters most. Experiment with a mixture of nonfiction (things that they know a lot about, an experience they had this summer, or a description of a place or person) and fiction (creating a made-up scenario and allowing them to get creative).
Here are some ideas to help your child get their writing juices flowing:
Nonfiction Journal Prompts
- Think about your favorite day this summer. What made it so special? Be descriptive about what you did and why you liked it.
- Describe a summer thunderstorm, but don’t use the words “thunder” or “lightning.” Use creative descriptions instead!
- Was there something that was really hard for you at the beginning of summer but that you got better at?
- What did you do on rainy days this summer?
- What was your favorite outdoor activity this year?
- Did you ever miss going to school this summer? Why or why not?
- Go outside and write everything you hear, taste, smell, touch, or see for 10 minutes.
Fiction Journal Prompts
- Imagine you are on the beach on your perfect day. Who would be with you and what would happen?
- If you were an ice cream flavor, what would you be?
- Imagine that you built a life-sized sand castle. Describe how you would build it, what you’d put inside, and who you’d enlist to help you.
- Pretend that you could swim underwater for as long as you wanted without having to come up for air. Pick a place to “swim,” and describe what you would see! (This could be an abandoned shipwreck, a coral reef, or your local swimming pool.)
What Do You Do if Writing, Spelling, and Reading Are Really Hard?
First of all, don’t give up. Creative and reflective writing are learned skills, and it does just take practice.
But if your child is significantly behind in writing, spelling, and reading, it may be time to investigate their cognitive skills before you get into the school year. Attention, memory, visual processing, and more cognitive skills can all impact their ability to do these tasks effectively. Instead of just struggling through, you can get them the help they need to succeed!
Give us a call today to learn more!
