How to Teach Kids Daily Journal Writing

Starting Children Journaling

Help your child find a suitable journal. To excite kids about the prospect of daily journaling, start by purchasing them a suitable paper-copy journal. Take the kids to your local office-supply store and ask them to look through the aisle containing journals and notebooks. Allow the kids to pick out a journal which appeals to them; they’ll be more inclined to write in a fun, personalized journal. Younger kids may appreciate brighter, fun-colored journals, or journals that they can decorate and put stickers on. Older children are more likely to prefer a more subdued journal, such as a standard composition notebook or a leather-bound journal.

Provide your child with access to a digital “journal.” If kids find the idea of journaling in a paper notebook to be old-fashioned, they may be more interested in a digital journal. If this is the case, encourage them to compose on a computer or tablet, and to save their work either on the hard drive or in the cloud. Your child may also journal on a tablet or mobile phone. They could even use a journaling app like Daily Journal or My Secret Diary, which include writing prompts in addition to protecting the user’s privacy with a password. Explain to children that these objects are much more expensive and delicate than a paper notebook, and need to be treated with care. Don’t allow younger kids to eat or drink while using electronics, especially if they’re writing using your computer or tablet.

Provide toddlers with journaling supplies that suit their age. While young children won’t be able to compose their thoughts in a journal in a traditional sense, you can still help them “write” on a daily basis. Provide your toddler with a plastic tub full of markers, colored pencils, crayons, stickers, and glitter sticks. Then, help them draw on and paste things to the pages of a journal, or supervise as they color in a coloring book. As your toddlers age, they can graduate from markers, stickers, and crayons to pens and pencils, and will begin to actually write sentences. If you’ve already ingrained in them the habit of daily journaling, they’ll have an easy time maintaining the habit as older children. At this young age (and probably for the majority of their childhood), children will probably be eager to show you what they have drawn and written in their journals.

Explain to older children that their journal is a safe place for writing. This means that they can write whatever they please, and it will not be criticized, corrected, or evaluated. Even if as younger children they were eager to share their journal entries with you, as they age, they may decide that their journal is private and not for others to read. Privacy will help kids enjoy their daily journaling time and encourage them to improve in their thinking and their writing. A journal is also a great place to encourage older children to try creative writing. Ask them to write a poem, a short story, or a one-act play. If kids aren’t sure where to begin on a creative piece, search online and provide them with a suitable prompt. You can also write prompts on ping pong balls or strips of paper and allow the children to choose 1 from a bowl.

Fostering Daily Journal Writing

Give kids access to fun writing prompts. Kids may be unsure of what to write when you first start teaching them to journal daily. You can help overcome this inertia by providing kids with writing prompts. These ideas will give kids something to write about and help them feel confident expressing ideas on the page. If you’re struggling to come up with sufficient writing-idea prompts on your own (especially if your kids want more than 1 prompt each day), look for prompts online. There are several websites that list fun, simple writing prompts for kids to try. For example, ask children to write 1 or 2 pages about: Something interesting they saw or heard that day A favorite family memory Their own daily emotions and experiences Their favorite book, movie, or TV show

Write down a list of writing topics for kids to pick from. If children find a prompt to be too narrow or limiting, consider presenting a broad topic for the day. Older kids especially may find a topic helpful to their journaling; it will give them the freedom to approach an idea from a variety of perspectives. As long as the topics are related to a child’s interests, they should approach the writing with enthusiasm. For example, if your child is interesting in surfing, you could write topics like, “Describe a wave you’d like to surf,” “Who is the best pro surfer?” or “Which brand of surfboard would you buy if you had unlimited money?” Encourage your child to help you come up with topics or prompts. Not only does this get their creativity flowing, it will help them become more invested in the journaling process.

Encourage your children to use new vocabulary. A journal is a great place for a child to try out using new vocabulary words that they may have learned at school or from friends. Children are more likely to enjoy the process of daily journaling if they can see their writing improve and learn how to spell and use new words at the same time. Help your kids with spelling when and if they ask you to; otherwise, let them figure out how to use and spell words on their own. Along with stressing new vocabulary words, you can also encourage older kids to use more complex sentences and to try to express more complex ideas as they become increasingly adept at journaling.

Cementing Daily Writing as a Habit

Give your child a daily time to journal. Children will be more likely to remember to write in their journals if you ask them to do it at a consistent time every day. This will also help kids understand journaling as a daily practice, not simply something to do once a month. Over time, your children should come to view daily journaling as a pleasant and habitual activity, like brushing their teeth or getting dressed in the morning. For example, ask you children to spend 20 or 30 minutes writing in their journal after they get back from school, after dinner, or before they go to bed each day.

Model journaling for children. If kids view journaling as a chore, show them that you’re willing to journal alongside them. This should incline the kids to be more open to spending time writing, since children often imitate behaviors that they see adults model. Sit with your kids in their room or at the kitchen table and keep your own journal that you write in while they write in theirs. Since you may be next to your children while writing, and they’ll probably want to look at your journal and read what you’ve written, avoid writing anything too personal or unsuitable for kids.

Provide ambitious writers with multiple journals. If your child enjoys writing in a variety of genres, styles, or modes, and has a habit of filling up personal journals very quickly, consider giving the child multiple journals, one for each type of writing they enjoy. For example, the child could use one journal for a personal diary and use another for journaling things observed in nature, a third for recording dreams, and a fourth to practice creative work: writing as well as drawing and sketching. As journals are often not cheap, consider giving them as Christmas or birthday gifts. Alternately, if your child earns an allowance, make it clear that they’ll need to use their own money to buy their journals.

Encourage children to re-read their own journal entries. This can be a valuable practice, especially if your children choose to keep a journal of their personal insights, emotions, and observations. Revisiting previous journal entries will allow children to see how much their writing has improved over the months, and also allow them to how they felt about and responded to forgotten life events. As an example of how to encourage children to regularly revisit old journal entries, on the last day of each month, request that they read at least 1 or 2 old entries from the preceding 2 or 3 months.