A. Toddler Tales

You don't have to wait until the children are in second or third grade to write a report. Get them in the habit when they are very little, just starting to talk in complete sentences. Really, a report is just putting into writing what you know. Toddlers know a lot. When they are able to talk in complete sentences, tell them you're going to help them start a journal. Let them tell you about their day, or about a special event. As they talk, type the material into your computer, or write it on paper. If they don't give you enough details, ask questions: What color was the squirrel? What was the weather like when we were there? How did you feel about that?

In these early journals, don't worry about getting the facts straight. If they want to say they saw a green chicken talking to a purple elephant, let them. When they're older, they will enjoy reading these early reports. When they finish, type it up and give it to them to illustrate. Keep all their reports in a hole-punched notebook to be brought out on quiet Sundays or boring rainy days.

Once they reach pre-school ages-or sooner if you're a writing family-they will want to make up stories like the ones they read in books. The first stories are heavily plagiarized, but you can gradually teach them to make up more original ones. To learn about story writing, check out my link on creative writing.

Pre-schoolers can learn to write reports. If you do your pre-school at home, you probably include some sort of science. When you can see they have memorized a fair amount of information on a subject, let them dictate the facts to you, just the way they do their stories. By now, they are comfortable telling stories in dictation form, so they will know how to do it. The facts will be all out of order, but that's okay. It's hard to organize before you can read. If you want to try teaching them to organize their information a little, try teaching them to make a plan.

Ask them to tell you all the categories for their topic. They won't know what that means of course, so you'll have to help. For a report on dinosaurs you might catagorize by names of creatures. Write them down, even if the child can't read. They should start seeing all the ways you can use words to help you learn. Ask what kinds of things people might want to know about dinosaurs: what they eat, how big they were, or where they lived. Under the name of each dinosaur, write the three or four categories you thought of. This is more or less an outline. Add to the list what the answers are: What it eats: meat. Now help them shape this into a short report. Say, "Now we want to tell them what brontosauruses ate. Do you remember what we wrote? Can you give me a complete sentence about that?" You don't need a fancy lesson on complete sentences. If the child says, "meat," then write, as you say, "Brontosauruses eat meat." (Actually, I don't know what they eat because I don't have second-graders in the house any more, but you get the idea.) Eventually they catch on and will start giving you complete sentences on their own. Again, let them illustrate the report any way they like. By the time they learn to write, report writing will be second nature to them.

B. Writing it Themselves

By second grade, they should be comfortable enough with both reading and writing to handle their own written reports. You can teach them to do this in easy stages, if you don't mind working at it. (When's the last time you wrote a report? You'll get to try your hand at it now, which will give you sympathy for your children.)

The first report will be a group effort. If you have more than one child who can't write reports, have them work together. Otherwise, you can teach this to one child just as easily.

Start by choosing a topic. They will probably not be very good at doing this, but you can help. Just remember these easy rules for choosing topics: It should be one you like well enough to spend a lot of time on. It should be easy to research. It should not be too broad.

Writing on the subject of dinosaurs is fine for a three year old, but we're doing real reports now. Narrow the topic. Don't write about trees-write about evergreen trees of the Pacific Northwest. Don't write about cats. Write about cats in ancient Egypt. Narrow the topic to a manageable size. Have your child make a list of things he'd like to learn about, preferably related to something you're already studying, so that it becomes a built-in part of your curriculum, and not something extra. The list will probably be general, but that's okay. Once you pick a category, you can narrow it down. Say, "The Civil War was a big war. What part of it interests you the most?" You can, of course, choose the topic, but I've noticed children work much harder when they're interested in their subject. I usually narrow the choices just a little: "You may write on any event in American history up through the Civil War, since that's what we're studying this year." "This is going to be a science report, so choose a topic in this year's book to research."

Have every child in your homeschool write a report at the same time, and you should consider choosing a topic, too, if you're not doing a group report. Choose something simple and appropriate for your children to read. (A topic from an upcoming unit is good, since you need to start studying that anyway.)

After you have a topic for your group report, it's time to find out if there are enough sources at your child's reading and age level. Start by looking at your personal bookshelves. Then look in your computer. Do you have encyclopedias? Try the web, although you may want to pre-search this yourself, since seemingly innocent search titles can lead you to some weird places. Next, schedule a field trip to the library. Introduce your child to the reference librarian. Try to choose a time when they're not busy, and consider calling for an appointment. Even if you know how to do a library search, your children need to learn to feel comfortable asking for help. Most librarians are more than happy to introduce children to research techniques. Order books if you need to and check out a few to get started. A first report for a second grader doesn't need more than five good sources, although the number should increase as they become more experienced. If you can't find five good sources, choose a new topic.

Start by creating bibliography cards for each source you found. Put one source on each card and include the following information: title, author, date and place of publication and the pages that apply to your book. Make it match the way your bibliography will look. In the top corner, number the source. Later, when you're taking notes, you can write the number instead of the entire source.

Next, you'll begin the research. Kids get sidetracked easily on this, so walk them through it. If you're doing a group report, you can help with some of the notetaking. Remember, this first report doesn't need to be more than one typed page, so you don't need a lot of notes.

Choose the shortest and easiest book to start with. You're not writing down every word in the book, so try to help your child find the really important facts. If you have a scanner, you might try scanning in a few pages and helping them choose sentences to highlight. Those highlighted notes can be written onto the notecards.

Each individual fact needs its own notecard. At the top of each lined card, put the source number in the left-hand corner. This will help in footnoting, or in double-checking your facts. In the center, put the subject of the card: soldier's clothing, birth, electricity discovery. This let's you find the right card in a hurry. Leave the right hand corner open for now. Later, it will have the section of your outline where this card belongs.

The body of your card will have the fact. Use phrases, not complete sentences. (You might want to teach this in a separate lesson. Give complete sentences and let your child practice writing meaningful phrases.) If you are quoting exactly, use quotation marks and write quote in large letters at the bottom of the card. If you need more than one card, for a story, perhaps, label the cards with letters by the heading.

As you work, you will begin to see categories emerging. You can write an outline before you start, but if you're like me, you won't be entirely sure where all this is leading until you're further into the research. If so, start making divider cards as you discover a category. By the time you finish your research, you will have your outline nearly finished, simply by organizing the dividers.

Throughout all of this, you and your child will be working together. At first, you'll be guiding rather heavily, but eventually, your child will be doing more and more of the work. Long before they leave grade school, you want them to feel very comfortable writing good reports all alone.

When the research is finished, you can begin to write the report. Before you start, double-check the due dates on those library books. Reports have a way of becoming very expensive projects if you don't!

Help your child to make an outline from those heading cards. One way to do this is to spread out across a large room. (I write whole books this way, but your room won't need to be quite as large.) Rubber-band all the cards with their divider on top and labeled. Rearrange them until you have them in an order that makes sense. This is your basic outline for the report. If you haven't taught outlining yet, this is a good time to start. You'll need those roman numerals before long.

Write the outline on paper, and then cut it up. Cut up sheets of paper are easier to work with than a printed list. You could also use those dividers if you'd like. Now un-rubber band the first pile. Decide what order the cards should be in, and lay them in order. Once you're happy with the order, number them in that empty right-hand corner. If you've finished that lesson on Roman numerals and outlining, write where on the outline it goes, (IA, for example.) Otherwise, you can just use A for the first section of cards, and a regular number for the order in that section. Go on to the next stack, and continue until you finish the outline. Put all the cards back in your box in order. (You can keep the rubber bands to make it easier to pull out individual stacks for writing.) Write your outline on paper and add it to your child's notebook as part of the official portfolio you probably have to keep for your state.

Now it's time to write the report. Start with the very first section of cards. Put them in a stack or lay them on the floor in a long line, in the order you planned earlier. Pick up the first card, and turn it into a complete sentence in your child's own words. (The advantage of those phrases on the card is that the children don't plagiarize the way so many public school children do who have the book right in front of them.) Don't worry about the interesting opening. It can be added later, when you're typing it into the computer. Right now, you're just getting the facts on paper in a meaningful way. As two of you work together, make suggestions for new paragraphs, and even let them dictate portions of the report-but not all of it-to make the process less frustrating if needed.

Once it's done, get it typed up. If your child isn't typing at all yet, get him started. Children can edit much more easily on a computer. If he can type, even if it's only hunt and peck style, let him type parts of the report. Help him out a little until he's a little older, but don't change anything when you type. You'll be editing together later. Once it's all in, decide on an introduction. Try reading some introductions in his books to help him get ideas. The purpose of the introduction is to tell the reader what the report is about, and to capture their interest. Add it in, as well as a good closing, chosen in the same way.

When you're ready to edit, do it on the computer. You won't have a paper full of red marks to upset him. Make sure you save and print a copy of each draft, to put in the folder. This shows progress, and helps the child to see the benefits of editing.

Start by reading the paper aloud and complimenting what's good. Let him tell you what he likes too, and whether he became aware of anything that needs to be changed. Run it through the grammar check, and decide what changes to make from there. Remember that the grammar check is a computer program. It doesn't really understand what you wrote, so its suggestions don't always make sense. You still have to know enough about spelling and grammar to decide which changes to use and which to ignore.

Then go through the paper together, making changes as you go. Don't rewrite his paper for him. It should reflect the abilities of a child, but you can suggest ways to tighten an occasional sentence, or fix a grammatical problem. If you also work on these skills in an English book, his writing will improve rapidly.

When the paper is the way everyone wants it, try putting it in a cardboard binder with a decorated cover. Kids in public school usually get some attention for their work, and it's nice for homeschoolers to get it too. If your child has a homepage of his own, (and it seems like every homeschooler does these days) let him post it to the page. Mail it to the grandparents. Archie comics publishes short school reports in its comic books. (Honest-they do!) Then put the fancy bound copy on your bookcase in the reference section. Recognition makes a child feel like a real author.

With each report, your child will need less and less help. The reports should gradually become longer and more sophisticated, but if you've been doing them since the toddler years, they won't be a frightening task.