Wondering how much to edit your child's writing? Learn five ways to guide revision, teach writing skills, and help your child become a more independent writer.
My sister broke my writing teacher heart recently. She told me a story I have no recollection of, but it made me cringe. As she tells it, when she was a young teen, she brought something she wrote to her older sister for review. I took my task seriously, and dutifully brought out my editor's red pen. Here's where I made my biggest mistake. I misunderstood the assignment.
I thought my role in that moment was to show how perfectly I revise her paper. I proceeded to, as the cliche goes, "bleed red" all over my sister's paper.
I am now keenly aware of how discouraging that must have been to my little sister. You see, I did not understand that the role of editor is not to find everything that's wrong. An editor looks at a piece of writing as a whole. They help the writer see what is working, and guide the writer towards meaningful improvement of their message.
Parents, you may be making the same mistake I did. If you are fine-tooth-comb proofreaders instead of thoughtful editors, you are probably doing too much.
If you're wondering, "What's my job when my child hands me a paper?" then understanding these five ways to edit your child's writing will make your writing sessions more fruitful than being a "red pen proofreader."
Five Editorial Roles for a Parent Teaching Writing
Strengths Spotter
Your first job is to notice what your child is already doing well.
Notice the skills your child is successfully using independently (especially if they are adjacent to the "next step skill" to be worked on). "You used an -ly adverb expertly in this sentence" is more useful than simply circling an awkward -ly adverb somewhere else in the paper.
Focus Setter
Your next job is to decide what actually deserves attention in this paper.
Don't edit everything. Choose a skill or two you're currently teaching/practicing. If your student just learned about strong verbs, you don't need to address every weak sentence, missing transition, or punctuation error. Make sure they can use the new skill with independence. The IEW practice of "do what is easy plus one new thing" (a.k.a "EZ+1") is an excellent mantra to keep in mind.
Skills Coach
Teach the "one new skill" your child is still learning to use.
Don't just fix the mistake on their paper. If a student has a comma problem, simply inserting commas everywhere does not help the student get it right next time. Stop and actively teach/re-teach the skill. I usually use a similar sample sentence to demonstrate the skill, then have the child apply it to his own sentence.
Revision Guide
Give your child the pencil.
Your child should do the editing on their own piece of writing. Ask them to apply the skill you just taught. In this way, you are guiding the writer, not becoming the writer. Allow them to fix their mistake "however imperfectly," as Andrew Pudewa says. As long as they are grammatically accurate, do not stress over whether you can see that there's a "better" word choice. When we take over and start re-writing a student's paper, we're practicing editing more than our child is. More importantly, we are communicating we don't think they can do it. Not every possible improvement needs to happen today. Today, they need to understand one skill well.
Finish-Line Caller
Know when to stop.
Many parents think, "If I don't fix this now, when will she learn it?" That's understandable. Yet, here's where the easy plus one new thing is so powerful. Finish on a high note instead of pushing your student into a marathon. Once the child has practiced the target skill, let the paper be finished. In the IEW writing program I teach, students write a paper or part of a paper every single week, so there are plenty of opportunities to practice that skill again while adding new ones.
Edit Your Child's Writing like an Editor, not a Proofreader
Remember, an editor helps a writer see his writing more clearly. A proofreader looks for every error. Your child needs you to be an editor first. (At the very end, I do lightly scan the paper for typos and errors my student simply overlooked-ones I know they understand how to correct.)
I wish I could go back and sit beside my little sister with the teaching skills I have now. I completely missed (and probably squashed) her beautiful creativity in my desire to "make it perfect." I would still want to help her make it better. This time, I wouldn't measure my success as her editor by how many corrections I could make. My job would be to help her become a better writer.
And that's your job too, as a parent editor!
Additional Resources for Teaching Your Child Writing
Visit my hub post to start Teaching Writing at Home!
For additional editing, marking, and grading resources, I recommend this IEW podcast page for "Editing Made Easy."
