Creative writing is recognised as one of the most beneficial skills for kids. It helps develop their cognitive growth, organisational abilities and persuasion power.

Overall personality development in kids is seen as creative writing challenges them to develop creative thoughts and solve problems. One such form of creative writing is essay writing. It helps kids engage in diverse views and inspires them to use their imagination to form sentences creatively.

What Is an Essay?

An essay is a short piece of writing that deals with a subject and is written to present an idea, express an emotion, propose an argument or initiate a debate. It is personalised and represents the writer’s thoughts and ideas in a non-fictional way.

Essays are written in formal as well as informal ways. Formal essays address serious topics, while informal ones are personal.

An essay can be a short as 500 words or as long as 5000 words and more. However, you can find that most essays fall around the word limit of 1000 to 3000 words, providing the writer with enough space to develop an argument and express their perspective in front of the reader.

Basics of Essay Writing

Since essay writing is so personal, it makes your child reflect upon their thoughts and express them creatively. This lays a foundation for improving their writing and further develops their creative writing skills.

Before we dwell any further on how to write good essays, let’s first begin with clearing the basics of essay writing for kids.

1. Correct Grammar & Spelling
   Your child needs to have a good grasp of significant writing concepts before writing essays. Grammar and spellings are the foundation on which your child will build their essays, so you need to ensure that they know the importance of using correct grammar and spelling. Teach the correct usage of grammar rules and encourage them to use proper spellings.
2. Creating an Outline
   An outline can be described as an initial plan of the essay that highlights the essential parts. Creating an outline beforehand helps your child organise their thoughts.
   
   To create an outline, tell your child to write down the topic of their essay and its main goal, which will help them clarify the central idea and their opinions about the subject. Lastly, all you have to do is create a list of all the parts that are going to be in the essay.
3. Guide Them in Staying Focused
   Once your child is clear with basic concepts, begin teaching them what an essay is and how to write one.
   
   Generally, a lot of kids have a short attention span, due to which they may find focusing on writing essays troublesome. However, this does not go for every child, but if your child has a short attention span, help them keep track of what they are writing.

Introducing Kids to Essay Writing

While some kids may enjoy essay writing, some might not. These tips will help you introduce essay writing to kids and make it fun for them!

1. Get Them Into Researching
   If your child finds writing a tedious process, introduce them to the concept of researching. Researching is fun for many kids as it involves various mediums such as books, movies, and videos for collecting information.
   
   Once they find a topic that interests them, they will automatically develop an interest in writing their opinions.
2. A Cool Journal Can Spark Their Interest
   Every child is excited about new things. To develop a liking for essay writing, give them a journal that will excite them. They can start writing about their day, how things went, how they felt throughout the day, and begin giving words to their thoughts.
3. Make Memories to Add it to Their Day
   At some point, even journaling can get boring for your child. To keep their interest alive, you need to make exciting memories with them.
4. Start With Ease
   Once they begin writing, give them easy topics like a visit to the park, my favourite activities or songs I like listening to. After these topics get easier for them to write, you can gradually increase the difficulty level.
   
   Check out the following essay writing topics to begin with.

Getting Started With Short Essays in English for Kids

Once your child is familiar with the concept of writing, get started with short essays. The below steps will guide you into how you can get your child into writing essays.

1. Brainstorming Topics
   The first step of getting started with writing essays is to choose a topic. Help your child brainstorm some topic ideas and tell them to write them down. Ask them to read out everything and consider which idea seems the strongest. Tell your child to keep in mind their primary goal and the purpose of their essay while brainstorming.
    
2. Topic Sentence
   A topic sentence is the main idea of the entire essay. It informs the readers what the essay is about. Hence, ask your child to reconsider the goal of their essay and develop a topic sentence accordingly.
3. Outlining the Essay
   Once your child has a good topic sentence, they will need content filled with facts, information and thoughts to support their primary idea. These supporting ideas will need to be placed appropriately in the essay, and for that, your child will need to create an outline of the essay.

The outline should follow some rules and contain the following parts:

• The Introduction
  The introduction should contain the topic and theme of the essay. This is important for the readers to understand the essence of the essay and what the writer wants to express.

• The Body
  The essay’s body should include at least three paragraphs with all the facts, figures, examples and thoughts to support the topic. If your child is just a beginner in writing, adding even one body paragraph is sufficient.

• The Conclusion
  The conclusion should always be crisp and simple in which one should neither add a new idea nor repeat any sentences from the body paragraphs. It should be engaging and help in wrapping up the essay smoothly.

Tips for Parents to Get Their Child Better at Essay Writing

Once your child gets started with essay writing, the following tips will help them get better at it.

1. Practice, Practice & Practice!
   It all comes down to practice! It is the key to getting your child better at writing essays and kickstarting their creative process. Practising is where their real improvement starts, and it will help your child get closer to where you want them to be.
2. Encourage Reading
   Reading is a great way to soak in information. It expands your child’s vocabulary. The more they read, the more language knowledge they will gain and improve their writing.
3. Use Technology in Your Power
   Technology holds the bad reputation of distracting kids, but when used wisely, you can leverage it to your advantage. It is a valuable tool in boosting your child’s knowledge of written words.

Bottom Line

You might face challenges as you teach your child essay writing, but don’t give up. Keep all of the above points in mind and make their creative writing lessons fun. As time passes, your child will learn the skills and grow to excel at writing.