How To Help Children With Story Writing
Throughout their school life, children will have listened to many stories being read to them. Many children also have parents who read to them regularly and encourage their children to read a variety of stories either to themselves, to siblings or to anyone who will listen! This all provides good foundations for children when it comes to writing their own stories. They will have ideas, characters and scenarios they can draw upon to help them write their own story.
Children should be exposed to a variety of genres. Story genres can include: horror, adventure, crime and detective, science fiction, comedy, fairy tales etc. This will give them the best chance of picking up a variety of ideas and writing styles, that they can then use in their own writing. They might already have a style or genre they prefer.
Helping Children Plan and Write A Story
Planning your story before writing it is very important. A story plan will help organise your ideas, develop characters and help ensure your story is interesting from beginning to end. Many stories follow the same basic format.
Stages Of Story Writing:
- Plan your story.
- Write your story
- Re-draft / edit your story
1. Plan Your Story
The planning stage is very important, but many children hate this part and see it as a waste of time. They just want to get onto the writing the story. However, having a rough plan can help children develop their ideas and structure the story. The story plan is not set in concrete, if children want to change their ideas as they write, then that is fine.
There are many ways to plan a story. Here are some story plan ideas:
- a brainstorm / spider diagram showing what will happen in the story
- using a storyboard
- using a story mountain
- making notes / bullet points to jot down what will happen in the beginning, middle and end.
A story mountain is a good way of helping KS2 children develop their story ideas.
Free Literacy Worksheet to Help Children Write Stories
Click on the download link below for a free story mountain writing frame. It shows children the kind of story features that need to go into each part of their story. Use this story mountain to help children plan their stories, before writing them. Ideas for what to include in the opening, build-up, problem, resolution and conclusion of a story. A useful story writing frame!
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Other Free Literacy Worksheets for Children:
Free Worksheet - Story Ideas Helpsheet
