10 Reasons to Write at Home

With all of the things parents have to do already, isn't writing one thing that could be skipped over to save some time and energy?

The answer is a resounding "NO!" There are very good reasons why writing is included in the three R's. It's one of the core school subjects that allows students to continue with their education and learn what and when they want to. It's also a vital skill in the workplace today. Don't shortchange them! Your kids need as much practice and instruction about writing as they can get!

Here are ten good reasons:

1. People make judgments based on writing. Like it or not, many important first impressions are made based on writing skills. Perhaps the most important example is with job applications. A boss looking at a job application is quite likely to trash the entire submission if the writing is not acceptable. No one wants an uneducated person working for them, and poor writing makes people look uneducated.
2. Writing helps you organize your thoughts. Creating sound paragraphs and larger works forces people to organize their ideas so that they can express them clearly. Consider the difference between how you speak and how you write. When most people speak, they talk in circles, get sidetracked, and even contradict themselves. On the other hand, good writing avoids all of those pitfalls. Develop writing skills and you also develop organized thoughts.
3. Writing skills allow you to take good notes. The further students go with their education, the more likely they are to need note-taking skills. If they cannot write well, the note-taking process becomes so laborious that it is ineffective. Learning to write well, understanding the differences between main points and supporting details, creating clear sentences and outlining are just a few of the skills that translate into better note-taking skills.
4. Writing improves communication. Much of the important parts of adult communication takes place in written form. Consider contracts, memos, reports and messages. Now consider how these things would look if the writer has little skill. There's no place in our competitive world for the miscommunications caused by poor writing skills.
5. Email and social media the way to communicate today. Whether we like it or not, computers and electronic communications are the primary means of communications, particularly in the work world. If your child does not learn to write adequately, he or she will be left in the technological dust.
6. But the computers are far from infallible. Too many young writing students have this notion that the computer spell checker and grammar checker can replace their effort and knowledge, and it's just not so. If a computer's spell checker were perfect, how could it pass this sentence with no errors? "Merry ad hay lid tell lam; ids fleas were wide has no." Not a single error, and yet only one word was actually correct.
7. Teachers evaluate based on writing skills. With class sizes where they are at, teachers rely more and more on evaluating learning through written assignments rather than on oral recitation. If your child has good understanding but cannot express the knowledge well, guess what his or her grade will be like?
8. Writing can become an inexpensive hobby. Fun is where you make it sometimes, particularly when the financial picture is bleak. Writing and related skills are easy to turn into hobbies of various sorts. Many people derive a great deal of pleasure from keeping a journal or diary, for example. Writing down family histories, penning letters to distant relatives (or emailing them), and writing memoirs of the kids' births and early childhood are all dependent on writing well.
9. Writing can help a household run more efficiently. Imagine a household where the budget is not written down, where boxes never get labeled, where treasured recipes are lost forever because they are ever not committed to paper. Now think about a household where directions to do difficult tasks are jotted down once they are figured out and detailed descriptions of household systems are left for the next owner of the home. That's the kind of difference that solid writing skills can make in a family's life.
10. Writing can provide an extra income boost. The internet has made it exceptionally easy to earn money from writing. Opportunities exist to monetize blogs, to write for content sites, and to make connection with magazines, editors and others who are searching for writers. It's now easy and inexpensive to write and self-publish your own book. If your child has sound writing skills, all of these opportunities are open to him or her.