Tonight I just don’t feel so good. Just one of those yucky coughs draining all my energy. So, I’m being a little lazy with this entry. A long time ago I used to write for another website. This article on keeping a reading log for kids is one of the many articles I wrote. I hope you enjoy reading & find some useful ideas to use with your own kids. Please leave any comments in the section below on this blog, though.
Heather
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Life Journal Software

I enjoyed this news story on one of the ways to encourage better writing; that is simply to read. The article also mentions parents modelling writing as a good form of communication and the use of a journal.
The article quotes Steve Peha and Margot Carmichael Lester, a husband and wife team, who created the series for children on improving writing ability; Be a Better Writer: Power Tools for Young Writers!: Essential Tips, Exercises and Techniques for Aspiring Writers.
I’m assuming the writers encourage your kids to keep a journal. I know my example encouraged both of my grown-up children to keep …read more

I’ve done a bit more searching for some journal prompts for children. Hopefully these will be useful to you and/or your children.
Hallmark has an interesting article with journal writing ideas for kids.
Scholastic offers a Descriptive writing workshop online which would work well for journal writing.
About.com has an article on Journal Writing in the Classroom.
Free worksheets to print out for journal writing every day of the year.
Something for you to read on the benefits of journal writing for kids.
Please share any other good links and prompts to journal writing for kids you may know of in the comments …read more

Teachers are constantly looking for ways to make learning easier for their students. One technique gaining more attention recently is journal writing. Of course, in the classroom this is nothing like the personal time spent writing only what the writer is likely to read. But then, even that shouldn’t be ruled out. Some children are more likely to feel comfortable about this than others. Their privacy should be high priority, but those who want to should be given room to read aloud to the class.
Instructional Strategies Online has an excellent article on how to use journal writing and …read more

Kids love to write in response to prompts. It matters little if you encourage them to use the prompts for writing journal type entries or to begin stories. As long as they write something. Here’s a couple of links for today, but I will add more prompts as I find them. Feel free to use these yourself, as any writing prompt is helpful, no matter if it is for children. You can always imagine you are a child when you respond:
Tooter4kids.com
Canteach.ca