Can Language Arts Be Fun? Here Are Some Helpful Hints.

Language arts encompasses many facets of reading and writing, starting in pre-kindergarten and continuing all the way through high school and beyond.

For some students (and parents or teachers), vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and creative writing come naturally, while others find language arts to be more difficult to grasp.

Whether your child or student loves to read and write, or struggles and doesn’t enjoy it, incorporating creativity and fun into the learning process makes it more pleasant for everyone, and makes it much more likely that your student will succeed.

Here are some suggestions for how to make language arts fun:

1. Incorporate humor

Choose stories with surprising plot twists. Have students practice writing their own jokes. High school students can watch a television sitcom (from several decades ago, perhaps) and summarize the plot or review an episode. Making a difficult subject seem more lighthearted can change a child’s perspective on it.

2. Tell their own story

Personal writing is powerful because it gives each person a voice and limitless subject matter. The youngest students can begin to do this by keeping a daily journal, where they write down the date, weather, and anything else that’s on their mind. Be prepared to give a variety of guided prompts to help them get started!

As kids get older, assigning personal essays and autobiographical stories can help make the writing process more instinctive for them. Personal writing doesn’t just have to be autobiographical, either; it can also be a way to explore interests and hobbies, helping students learn to research a topic before writing about it.

3. Choose their own

Allowing kids to decide what they want to read encourages them to love reading for its own sake. Giving them a choice in what to write about does the same. While it’s important for them to stretch themselves also, make sure you’re giving your child or student plenty of opportunities to read and write what genuinely interests them.

4. Play games

Grammar, vocabulary, and spelling all lend themselves to game-playing! Here are some ideas:

• Grammar Games from Education.com
• 11 Vocab Games to Make the Learning Stick from We Are Teachers
• 35 Spelling Games for Students of All Ages from Top Notch Teaching

5. Write stories based on illustrations

Artistic-minded kids will probably enjoy writing a story or description to go along with a picture. If you can work with your student one-on-one, you can help them write a story to go along with an entire book, such as the wordless children’s book Tuesday.

To get your toddlers and preschoolers started on early language arts skills, don’t forget to check out our alphabet placemats that can help them with letter and sound recognition!

Take care,

merka family

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