Here are some practical tips to help your child work out the best way to express themselves through their writing.

• Help your child to understand writing tasks that they may have been given for homework. Ask them to talk about what has to be done.
• Help your child to use reference materials such as dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopaedias, DVDs and the internet.
• Before your child attempts a task, help them to understand what reference materials are needed by talking about the task and asking questions which will guide the child's planning.
• Draw your child's attention to technical words in writing and discuss their meaning or look them up together in a dictionary.
• Help your child to understand and use information in graphs, diagrams and pictures when they are researching a writing task.
• Encourage your child to use different types of paper for drawing and writing and to use pens, pencils, crayons and markers.
• If you have a computer at home, help your child to use it to present their writing task.

If your child is having difficulty with homework, talk with their teacher.