Young Writers Workshop

This is one of the most popular activities on our site. Parents at home and teachers in preschool and primary grades have used our story starters to help children to build literacy skills for many years. Now we invite you to share some of the stories your children have written. If we select your child's story, we'll send him or her a free Chateau Meddybemps Young Writers Workshop "Published Author" T-shirt. Click here for details.

Help your children create stories.

Children love to have stories read to them. They often ask to have the same one read over and over. Next time your child asks you to read a story, tell her you want her to tell you a story. Use one of these Young Writers Workshop pages to help her get started.

As she creates the story, you write it down. You may have to help her a little the first time or two. No one has asked her to make up a story before and she will have to practice this new skill. Before long your child will be able to make up stories easily. she will be very proud of herself and gain confidence in her own creativity.

Your young child will ask you to read back her dictated stories over and over. Do it willingly. She is becoming aware of the permanence of words and she is practicing her memory skills. After a few repetitions, test her skills by leaving out a word or saying a totally different word and see if she catches the change. She probably will.

As your child learns to read and write, these story starters offer lots of subjects for your child to write about.

You can also create stories together. Each of you can take turns making up a sentence and you can write the story down. Your child will be especially proud of the story you wrote together. Keep all of the stories in a folder or binder. It will be a very special treasure for both of you.

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Copyright 2007, Jerry Jindrich. All rights reserved.

* We converted these pages to pdf files to improve the quality when you print. You will need the free Acrobat Reader (version 4 or later) to view the files. Click here to download the free reader from Adobe.

Note: you may already have Acrobat or another pdf reader installed on your computer. Click on any of the Workshop pages above to find out.

Ad for CD or 101 Story Starters

Click on each child's name to read his or her story. Some writers created their own artwork, too.