How to improve your child’s creative writing

Reading gives them something to draw on

A child who has read across a range of genres (classic fiction, poetry, the odd play, some non-fiction) absorbs sentence shapes, tone and technique as they go, and has somewhere to reach when a prompt lands in front of them.

Our Children’s Classics workbooks pair each chapter of a classic novel with a creative writing exercise, so a style can be tried out straight after your child has seen it done. There is more on why the classics matter in our guide to classic books for the 11+.

Short, regular, and never from a blank page

A paragraph or two most days builds the skill steadily, and it keeps writing from becoming something to dread. Starting from nothing is the hard part, so always give a prompt: a word, a phrase, a picture. A prompt gets the first sentence written, and it lets you steer practice towards a particular technique or theme when you want to.

Keep sessions short enough to end while your child still has something to say.

Feedback that improves the next piece

Pick one or two things to work on per piece and let the rest go for now. Be specific about what worked as well, because ‘I liked the storm’ teaches more than ‘lovely’.

Have your child proofread their own work before you see it. Self-checking is a skill that pays in every written exam, and it grows only with use. Writing alongside them helps too: a shared story, or the same prompt attempted by both of you, shows them how drafts get better and makes feedback feel like a normal part of writing rather than a verdict on it.

Top tips

• A few short sessions a week, rather than one long one.
• Always start from a prompt: a word, a phrase or a picture.
• One or two pieces of feedback per piece of writing, with something specific that worked.
• Proofreading their own work comes before showing it to you.
• Keep a folder of finished favourites, so your child can see how far they’ve come.
• Read across genres, classics included, so there is always something to borrow from.

How to prepare

Even where a test doesn’t set a formal creative writing paper, practising the skill builds confidence for comprehension answers and any written response. Our creative writing and punctuation packs give your child structured prompts and exercises to work through, and our Children’s Classics workbooks combine reading with writing tasks based on each chapter.

Writing improves with regular short goes. A paragraph or two most days, with one longer piece at the weekend, is the rhythm to aim for.