Motivating my kids to write, even my child who loves writing, can be tricky. Although I have a background in writing and do quite a bit of writing professionally, encouraging my kids through the writing process just isn’t easy! Writing is a process. It’s hard work, even if you are creative. And it can be really discouraging, disillusioning, and confusing. Starting with a great idea is the easy part; seeing that idea through to a final draft of a story is not. If you have little background in writing or are overwhelmed with the process yourself, motivating your child-writer can be even more difficult. What I have appreciated most about Bardsy Homeschool are all of the digital tools for writing that it provides to both encourage and motivate your writer.
Motivating your Writer with Digital Tools for Writing
Disclaimer: I was compensated for my time in reviewing this product and writing an honest review. All opinions are my own, and I was under no obligation to post a positive review.
Bardsy Homeschool provides helpful instruction videos, step-by-step board game style directions, and writing/editing tools that create an environment to empower your child to finish that story. It’s not a curriculum or a program necessarily, but more of a writing platform for self-directed learning. While Bardsy is recommended for a middle school student, I think the appeal could be much broader than that, stretching from upper elementary to high school.
Bardsy’s Digital Tools for Writing
When you log on to Bardsy Homeschool, the home page provides you with three different options: Writing, Writing Courses, and Inspiration. Each option includes links to three different tools. For instance, in the Writing option, you can choose to jump straight to the editor tool (set up similar to Word, Google Docs, or another word processor tool), take a look at your “Latest Story,” or jump into some guided writing with the “Prospero” tool. Prospero walks your writer through each step of brainstorming and developing an idea, with the writing/editing tools presented alongside the guided instruction.
Writing Courses provides you with three different tools for learning the process of writing with videos and more guided instruction. Each of these tools is presented almost like a board game with a path to follow as you click the links and move forward. The tools include a “Writing Warmup” that challenges newer writers to re-pen classic stories, “Better Storytelling” which goes through the various elements of stories and the assembly of those elements, and “Story Talk” which explains how to read and discuss the books and stories that others have written.
Under the Inspiration section, there is a very fun “Story Spinner” that provides a variety of quirky writing prompts at the click of a button. Don’t like the first idea? Just click again until inspiration strikes. There are also a ton of printables provided in the Inspiration section that can either be opened and used digitally or printed and filled out by hand. Plus, “Bonus Videos” for even more content are provided.
Once a story is completed, there are options to style the story with different layouts and formats. Then, your young writer hits the publish button. And this is my favorite part: someone within the Bardsy Homeschool staff actually comments and provides feedback for your child’s story. Not general feedback, but detailed, personal feedback that is both encouraging and really helpful.
What We Loved About Bardsy Homeschool
I decided to have my ninth grader use the program. He is a strong writer who had lost his motivation to write after some discouragements with a novel he’d been working on. That novel idea has been sitting for nearly a year, and I encouraged him to use Bardsy to brush the dust off that project and restart.
He loved using the platform and found it easy to navigate. The “Printables” section was one of his favorite features. But the feedback on his story is what really impressed me. My son hit the “publish” button on 55 pages of writing he had done in the past and revised using Bardsy’s tools. Within a day, a Bardsy staff member provided a lengthy, detailed comment highlighting her favorite parts of his story, his strengths, and a few tips for improvement. When I told him he’d gotten a comment, he thought it was an automated generic comment and was surprised and thrilled at the detail of the commenter. “Wow! Someone actually read my story.” And for the first time in several months, he was eagerly pulling that story back out and clicking away at it.
To say I’m impressed with Bardsy would be an understatement. I’m deeply grateful. The thought and creativity they have put into the platform is fantastic, and the detailed feedback really shows how passionate they are about helping young writers.
Bardsy’s Digital Tools for Writing: My Recommendations
While one of their newer mini-courses on Super Character Creation Kit did come with a bit of a lesson plan, this is not a curriculum or program with a scripted lesson to teach or with a clear 180-day path for your school year. This is an open-ended platform for self-directed exploration and learning. If you have a child who loves to write and enjoys clicking around and exploring his options, Bardsy’s digital tools for writing will be a dream come true. But for an unmotivated or reluctant writer, a little direction from you (and accountability to actually write) might be necessary. Also, this is not a grammar course or a full language arts curriculum; it’s a series of writing tools.
- Looking for a “writing coach” to help your child work through a story idea from start to finish? Bardsy Homeschool is really a great option.
- Looking for a self-directed, open-ended approach to teaching writing? Bardsy provides a great place for your young writer to explore.
- Looking for some tools to create your own Writing Club, either with your children or with a group of children? I think Bardsy would be an excellent choice and equip you with everything you need to create an exciting club.
A Bardsy Homeschool membership is $8.99 a month per member, with the option to cancel at any time. This is not a family rate, and only one author name is available. Ideally, you’ll want a membership for each child, which can get pricey for large families. But if everyone is okay with all of their stories written under the same author name, then I suppose it could work for multiple children to write on one membership. However, the printables and videos could easily be used with a whole homeschool family.
(And if you take me up on that Writing Club idea, each member of your club would need their own membership, too.)
Motivating young writers can be a very overwhelming task, no matter what your personal background in writing might be. Motivating your young writer with Bardsy’s digital tools for writing makes this task much less daunting. From the videos and easy to follow steps and tips, to the printables and detailed feedback on “published” stories, Bardsy Homeschool can breathe life back into your discouraged or reluctant writer.
Give it a try! Bardsy Homeschool is offering their Super Character Creation Kit for free, which gives you a sample video, printables, and writing tools. It’s an engaging way to try out their digital writing tools to see if this option is a fit for your young writer.
