How to Track Your Homeschooler’s Writing Improvement

Some subjects, such as math, are fairly easy to evaluate progress in. Either your homeschooler is “getting it” or not. Evaluating your child’s writing can be much more subjective. Unless you have several similar assignments to lay out in front of you for comparison, you may not be sure if your young writer is making measurable English writing improvement.

Time4Writing’s program dashboard can remove the question mark. Knowing your child or teen’s writing strengths and weaknesses can go a long way toward targeted growth. The insights you get from writing improvement software provide instant understanding of the areas where your young author still needs work.

Writing Standards Can Be Helpful

The first tool you have to better understand where your student writer falls in the skills spectrum is Time4Writing’s grade-by-grade overview of writing standards. Certainly, all young writers achieve milestones at a different pace, but having a simple reference tool of norms can help you identify gaps in areas such as:

• fragments and run-ons
• being able to summarize text
• using descriptive language
• providing details to back up their claims
• general grammar and mechanics

Find and review the standards for your child/teen’s grade level, then note any areas where you would like to see improvement. Then, browse Time4Writing’s catalog of courses to see which ones address the specific areas you want to target.

How to Track Your Student’s Progress on Time4Writing

Once you have signed your student up for the course that best meets his or her current writing goals, you have full access to our writing improvement software, including all of your student’s assignments, grades, and even teacher feedback. All you have to do is log into Time4Writing as your student, then click on your child’s course on the right hand side under “My Courses”. Next, click the “Activity Report” tab under Administration.

Here, you can view several items organized in chronological order by topic, such as:

• the date and time an activity/assignment was last accessed.
• the grade on the assignment.

If you click the Complete Report and Grade tabs, you’ll be able to see the same information as well as the assignment your child turned in and their teacher’s feedback. Being able to see what your child’s teacher has to say is a great way to learn more about your student’s strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps it will even give you ideas on what to focus on to better improve his or her grammar and writing skills.

Haven’t signed up yet? Elementary, middle, and high school students have their choice of 15 different writing improvement classes designed to address different goals. Weekly online lessons can be accessed 24/7 from anywhere with a computer and internet connection. You can even sign up now and begin your course immediately!