Tip #135 from 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents

Today's tip for parents from two talented teachers comes from 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents by Cindy McKinley Alder and Patti Trombly.

  #135

Story Board

Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.

~E. Joseph Cossman

When your child’s goal is to write a story, it is often tempting to just dive right into it. Children are usually more eager to simply finish a project than they are motivated to do a good job at it. If you show your child an easy way to organize his ideas before beginning a creative writing project, he can create a much more detailed and complete story than he would have had he simply started writing. Here’s a fun way to help him do that.

For young kids, not strong writers yet:

Draw a few rows of filmstrip-looking boxes on a piece of paper. (See our website for an example.) Tell your child he is going to be a moviemaker. He should try to think about the story he wants to write as if it were going to be a movie he is watching. What would be happening in the first scene? (He draws it with a moderate amount of detail in the first box.) What would happen next and then after that and so on until he has drawn the whole story?

Remember that this is a rough draft and does not need to be super neat and include incredible detail. Encourage him to add as much detail as he needs to remind himself of everything he wants to write about.

It may be helpful next to have him tell you the story based on the illustrations he has made on his story board. This will help him to see if he has left anything out that he wanted to say. It also gives you the opportunity to ask questions or make suggestions that might improve the meaning or flow of the story. If he finds that he’d like to add more detail than he can fit in the box, give him a new sheet, and have him draw in the new event. Then, he can number the boxes (including the ones on the new page) so that he will know not to skip the ones he’s added.

By first illustrating the events sequentially and in detail, your child should find it rather easy to actually write the story.

Older kids and stronger writers can jot ideas down rather than illustrations. A “Story Map” is a great place to do that. They usually contain laces for the major story elements. (Characters, Setting, Beginning, Problem/ Goal, Middle, Resolution, Ending.) If your child jots down ideas for each of these, he has an entire plan for the story and knows all of the important things to include. Chances are he won’t leave out anything important. Again, if he takes it one step further and explains the map to you first, you can encourage him to jot down any details he’s left out. The result is almost always better than if he hadn’t made a plan before writing.

See the website for film strips (for younger kids) and a Story Map (for older kids).


Cindy McKinley Alder                          Patti Trombly

For more posts about the authors and their books (this is not the only one), click HERE.
For excerpts from more books, click HERE.
For more excerpts from 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents, click HERE.
For more posts about books about parenting, click HERE.

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