Free online writing programs for elementary students are a useful tool for grammar and writing curriculum. They provide a multimedia approach to writing that incorporates audio, image, and video elements to engage the student. Online writing programs have been popping up all over the web creating more opportunities for your students to practice their skills.
If you’re looking for online writing programs for elementary students, be sure to read about the 5 featured below.
1. Write About This
Write About This is an app created by Brad Wilson, an elementary school teacher, and by Bob Armbrister, an entrepreneur and IT leader. The purpose of it is that of helping elementary-age children learn by using visual writing prompts with the support of their parents and teachers.
This app allows young students to develop several skills – for instance, numerous prompts require them to state and explain their points of view regarding specific topics, while also providing a starting point for fiction and nonfiction narratives. At the same time, both prompts and pictures are used to help students create details for works of poetry, prose, and for many others, which vary from letters to lists.
A free version of Write About This is available as well, but it only gives you the possibility to check out all the features and functionalities provided in the full version. The latter costs only $3.99 and it encompasses 125 images, 375 prompts, unlimited Write Abouts, voice recordings, author profiles, exports to camera roll, and a few others. An Android version with the same materials is available for $2.99.
2. Pre-reading & Pre-writing by M.E. Greenlee through Storybird
Storybird is a platform designed particularly for writers who wish to improve their skills. Here you can learn how to tell your stories, while also having the benefit of receiving feedback on your work from teachers, authors, and professional editors. Over 9 million writers from all over the world are active on Storybird. The website has three main categories, respectively Challenge, Read, and Write. The latter includes Picture Book, Longform Story, Comics, Flash Fiction, and Poetry, where you can find artworks that will help you create a narrative. However, the Challenge section is the most useful one – it involves Basic Writing, Creative Writing, Thematic Compositions, Children’s Songs, Leveled Reads, and How-To Guides.
Pre-reading & Pre-writing is a course meant for children in grades 1 and 2, and it was created by M.E. Greenlee, an educator who has 20 years of experience in the field. It contains 27 challenges (easy writing and reading lessons), and each of them covers a different topic. For instance, in lesson 4, your child will have to create their own picture book featuring an invented character, while in lesson 8 they will be asked to use words such as “apple” and “igloo” to create another picture book.If you want to sign up as a parent, you have three membership options: $8.99/month for the monthly plan, $4.99/month or $59.98/year for the yearly plan, and up to 40% off for the family plan, which is available for 2-5 members. The membership options for educators are displayed here. To ask any questions, you can access the Contact Us section at the bottom of the main page.
3. Time4Writing
Time4Writing’s team of certified teachers will help your child study from home. Mrs. Leslie joined the team in 2008 – she has a BA in Secondary Speech, Drama, and Middle School English from The University of Miami, and she began her career in the Miami-Dade Public Schools, where she spent 10 years both as a teacher and as a department chair. Mrs. Glig is another teacher working for Time4Writing – she has a BA in Education and an MA in Curriculum, and she has experience in teaching all age ranges, from preschoolers to adult educators.
There are three types of courses on the platform: basic, intermediate, and advanced. Those created for elementary school students are appropriate for grades 2-5, and they involve grammar skills, writing sentences, writing paragraphs, narrative writing, and a few others. To exemplify, Writing Paragraphs is an intermediate course which teaches students how to put together the parts of a paragraph, as well as how to write in chronological order. In the first unit, they have to review writing sentences and to practice writing a topic sentence. Later on, they will be taught to transition words in order to make their sentences flow together, and they will end the course by learning how to write a narrative paragraph. If interested, you can find a demo here – the curriculum is also available online.
4. Connections Academy
Connections Academy is an online schooling option which provides free online elementary school courses which focus on reading, writing, social studies, math, and science. Supported by Pearson, their approach is called Personalized Performance Learning, and it involves reviewing the child’s background and learning styles, evaluating test performance, as well as setting goals. Regular evaluations, individualized lessons, and schedule modifications are the main activities through which they adapt to every student’s changing needs – this is possible because their teachers try to maintain a permanent collaboration with the parents. their elementary school programs (K-5) are meant to help children learn the basics of writing and acquire new skills. If you need to see sample lessons before making a decision, you can find several here – the only thing you have to do is to select the appropriate grade. However, there are still eligibility requirements that have to be met, and they depend on the location chosen. For instance, for the 2020-2021 school year, the California Connections Academy schools request an official birth certificate, a green card, medical records, a passport, and a few other documents. You can find additional information on enrollment here.
5. Essentials in Writing – Where Students Learn to Write
Essentials in Writing was founded by Matthew Stephens, who has a BA in Elementary Education from Missouri State University and a teaching certificate with a focus on Elementary Education, Middle School and High School English with the Missouri state. Furthermore, he holds two MAs – one in Education Administration from William Woods University, and one in Music from Texas State University. More details about the team can be found here.
Their writing courses are available on levels, starting from ages 6-7 to ages 17-18. Each course contains lesson-by-lesson video instruction for students, and you can opt either for streaming or for DVD. If you choose the first one, your child will take classes online exclusively, and will still receive a physical copy of the textbook and Teacher Handbook, as well as the assessment/resource booklet if you choose to purchase this. The Level 1 course (ages 6-7) includes lessons like letter, word, and sentence formation, types of sentences, common nouns, adjectives, action verbs, lists, paragraphs, personal narratives, and parts of a personal letter.
Each course costs $89 – if you want to learn more, you can contact them online.
Elementary & Primary School Courses
Time4Writing has courses for elementary and primary school students at the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. Scroll down to find the right course for your child.
Elementary School Beginner Courses
Elementary School Grammar
This course has been created for the youngest eager writers, starting at 2nd grade. During the eight week pre-sentence course, students are introduced to parts of speech and how to recognize and use them in a sentence. Students are taught to recognize and form a complete sentence with a subject and predicate. Students also learn to recognize basic capitalization rules and proofreading strategies. Through online tutoring by a certified teacher, classroom and homeschooled students alike improve their writing skills as they learn the fundamentals of proper grammar.
Elementary School Sentences *This course begins every day.
Students learn to write and revise their own complete sentences, with descriptive details. Gaining knowledge on the four sentence types as well subject-verb agreement, students write sentences correctly, and with confidence. Acting as an online writing tutor, a certified teacher instills these foundational principles to students through engaging exercises and encouraging feedback as they learn to construct clear and grammatically correct sentences.
Elementary School Intermediate Courses
Elementary School Paragraphs *This course begins every day.
Students learn the parts of a paragraph as well as how to put them together to make a perfect paragraph. Learning to write different types of paragraphs and learning to write in chronological order, students come away ready to start learning about essays. A certified teacher, acting as an online writing tutor, presents creative writing ideas and instruction allowing both traditional students and homeschoolers to build a strong foundation for essay writing through paragraph practice.
Elementary School Advanced Courses
Elementary School Essays *This course begins every day.
This course introduces elementary students to longer forms of writing. It prepares students for essay writing by engaging them in the process of writing various types paragraphs such as expository, persuasive, and narrative. The culminating activity of the course is writing a five paragraph narrative essay. Each student works one-on-one with a certified teacher, who acts as an online writing tutor providing personalized feedback, guidance, and assistance.
Elementary School Narrative Writing *This course begins every day.
Young students have a natural fascination with the animal kingdom, and in this new course, they will get a chance to tell Wild Animal Tales! While learning how to use narratives to entertain their readers, they will also be working through the five stages of the writing process: prewriting, planning, drafting, revision, and editing. Certified writing teachers will help elementary students gain important skills in research, plot and character mapping, and recognizing their own writing errors.
Elementary School Informative Writing *This course begins every day.
Advanced elementary writers will be “wild” about the newest Time4Writing course addition, Informative Writing**. Using multimedia tools, young writers will stretch their writing muscles by researching a wild animal and then creating a multimedia slideshow to showcase their findings. As they take part in the eight-week course, students will work with their online certified teacher to understand each stage of the writing process: prewriting, planning, drafting, revision, and editing.
Conclusion
It has taken some time for free writing programs to make their way into the curriculum of elementary writing teachers, but today they are becoming more commonplace. This is due to the influx of new technologies that make use of online programs to assist students with learning how to draft writings, novelize their own stories, and even create interactive presentations. That being said, all of these free writing programs are not created equal.