“Now revise it” is one of the hardest instructions a young writer gets, because it rarely comes with a picture of what revising looks like. This guide gives you three. Each piece is shown as a plan, a first draft and a revision, and every change has a name and a reason, so you can show your child what to do rather than only telling them.
Download the free revision card (PDF, 1 page): two cut-apart cards, with three simple questions for young writers and a revise-then-edit checklist for grades 2–5. No account or email is required.
The pieces are original, written for this guide. The children and events in them are invented.
Revising and editing are different jobs
Revising changes what the writing says, so the meaning is clearer: adding a missing detail, cutting a sentence that does not belong, putting events in order, choosing a more exact word. Editing fixes how the writing looks: capitals, punctuation and spelling.
The difference matters because they compete for attention. A child asked to fix everything at once usually fixes the spelling, which is easy to see, and leaves the ideas alone. Revise first, while the ideas can still move. Edit last, once the words are settled.
The first drafts below are spelled correctly on purpose, so that you can see revision on its own. Real first drafts usually have spelling mistakes too. Leave those for the editing step.
How to use these examples
- Read the draft and the revision aloud, side by side. Ask your child what changed, and whether it helps. Noticing is the first skill.
- Model one move before asking for it. Revise a sentence of your own out loud (“I wrote a pot, but which pot? I’ll add red.”), then try one together, then let your child try one alone.
- Choose one or two moves, not all of them. A young writer who adds one good detail has revised. A page covered in suggestions teaches that revising is punishment.
- Start with what works. Say what you liked before suggesting anything, and let the writer decide what to change. It is their piece.
Kindergarten–Grade 1: a true story
Prompt: Tell about something you did with someone you love.
Plan: draw it, then number it
Young writers often plan best with a drawing. The child drew three pictures and numbered them in order, and the grown-up wrote a label under each:
- Grandma and me with a pot
- Beans going into the dirt
- The watering can
First draft
Grandma and I planted beans. We put them in a pot. We gave them water.
Responding to the draft
The grown-up read it back and asked two questions: “What did the pot look like?” and “What happened after that?” The child answered out loud first, then added the words, and the grown-up wrote them where the child pointed with a ^ mark.
Revising
- Add a detail you can picture. “A pot” could be any pot. One or two describing words let a reader see this one.
- Before: We put them in a pot.
- After: We put them in a red pot full of dirt.
- Tell how it ended. The draft stops before the exciting part. A story feels finished when the reader learns what happened last.
- Before: We gave them water.
- After: We gave them water. After four days, a green shoot poked out!
Revised
Grandma and I planted beans. We put them in a red pot full of dirt. We gave them water. After four days, a green shoot poked out!
A child who cannot yet write the new words can say them, and a grown-up can write them in. Saying the revision out loud is still revising.
Grades 2–3: a story
Prompt: Write a story about something that gets lost and then found.
Plan: POW
POW is a planning strategy: Pick an idea, Organize your notes, Write and say more. The writer’s notes:
- Pick: Sam loses a mitten at recess.
- Beginning: playing in the snow.
- Middle: the mitten is gone; he looks everywhere; he feels worried.
- End: the snowman is wearing it!
First draft
Sam played in the snow at recess. He lost his mitten. He looked for it. He was sad. Then the bell rang. He found it on the snowman.
Responding to the draft
The writer read it aloud to a partner, who said what they liked first (“the snowman is funny!”), then marked a ^ after “He looked for it” (where?) and a ? beside the last two sentences (did he find it before the bell, or after?).
Revising
- Join two short sentences. Two short sentences about the same moment can become one, and the new sentence has room to answer “where?”
- Before: He lost his mitten. He looked for it.
- After: He lost his mitten and looked by the swings, the slide and the fence.
- Show the feeling. “He was sad” names the feeling. Describing what Sam felt and did lets the reader feel it too.
- Before: He was sad.
- After: His hand was cold and red, and his eyes stung.
- Make the order clear. The ? showed the reader could not tell what happened first. Putting the finding before the bell, and saving the surprise for last, fixes both.
- Before: Then the bell rang. He found it on the snowman.
- After: Just before the bell rang, he spotted it. The snowman was wearing it!
Revised
Sam played in the snow at recess. He lost his mitten and looked by the swings, the slide and the fence. His hand was cold and red, and his eyes stung. Just before the bell rang, he spotted it. The snowman was wearing it!
Notice what did not change: the idea, the order of the plan, and the funny ending. Revising made the writer’s own story clearer. It did not replace it with someone else’s.
Grades 4–5: an opinion piece
Prompt: What is one change that would make your school better? Convince a reader.
Plan: an outline
Older writers can plan an opinion piece as an outline: the opinion, then each reason with a detail to back it up.
- Opinion: our school should plant a garden.
- Reason 1: science. Detail: measure bean plants every week.
- Reason 2: fresh food. Detail: lettuce and tomatoes for lunch.
- Reason 3: nature. Detail: flowers for bees and butterflies.
- Ending: ask the principal.
First draft
I think our school should have a garden. Gardens are really nice. We could learn science. We could grow lettuce and tomatoes for lunch. My cousin has a garden and her dog is named Pepper. It would help bees too. That is why we need a garden.
Responding to the draft
The writer reread the draft against the plan and asked the self-check questions: Are the ideas clear? Does every sentence belong? Will this convince a reader? Three reasons were there, but two had no detail, one sentence was off-topic, and the ending asked for nothing.
Revising
- Replace a vague sentence. “Really nice” tells the reader nothing they can check. Saying how many reasons are coming helps them follow the argument.
- Before: Gardens are really nice.
- After: A garden would help us in three ways.
- Back up a reason with a detail. The plan had a detail for this reason, but the draft left it out. A reason with an example is more convincing than a reason alone.
- Before: We could learn science.
- After: First, we could learn science by measuring our bean plants every week and graphing how they grow.
- Cut what does not belong. It is true and interesting, but it does not support the opinion. Cutting it keeps the reader on the argument.
- Before: My cousin has a garden and her dog is named Pepper.
- After: (sentence removed)
- Signal each reason. Words like first, second and third show where each reason starts, and the last reason gets the detail it was missing.
- Before: We could grow lettuce and tomatoes for lunch.
- After: Second, we could grow lettuce and tomatoes for lunch.
- Before: It would help bees too.
- After: Third, flowers in the garden would feed bees and butterflies.
- End with something to do. “That is why we need a garden” repeats the opinion. An opinion piece is stronger when it ends by asking the reader to act.
- Before: That is why we need a garden.
- After: Let’s ask our principal whether our class can plant the first bed this spring.
Revised
I think our school should have a garden. A garden would help us in three ways. First, we could learn science by measuring our bean plants every week and graphing how they grow. Second, we could grow lettuce and tomatoes for lunch. Third, flowers in the garden would feed bees and butterflies. Let’s ask our principal whether our class can plant the first bed this spring.
The plan did much of the work here. Most of the revision moves were the writer checking the draft against the outline and putting back what was already planned.
Editing comes last
Once the ideas are settled, edit. The IES writing guide describes a short editing checklist called COPS:
- Capitals: the first word of each sentence and names.
- Overall: can someone else read it easily?
- Punctuation: end marks and commas.
- Spelling: check words you are unsure of.
For a young writer, one or two editing checks are plenty. The goal is writing another person can read, not a perfect page.
Kind, useful feedback
- Say what you liked first, and be specific: “The snowman ending made me laugh” is more useful than “good job.”
- Use two marks instead of corrections. A ? means “I got lost here.” A ^ means “I want to know more here.” The writer decides what to do about each one.
- Ask, do not rewrite. “Which pot?” leads to a revision the child owns. Writing the new sentence for them does not.
- Keep it short. One or two marks per piece is enough to practise revising.
Where to go next
- Need an idea and a plan? The story starter and planner builds a beginning, middle and end notebook you can print.
- Looking for something to write about? Our writing prompts for grades K–5 has 50 per grade.
- Writing about a book? The book report template gives fiction and nonfiction readers a place to plan.
Sources
The distinction between revising and editing, and the planning, feedback and self-check strategies named here (POW, ordering ideas, outlines, ? and ^ peer marks, self-evaluation questions, sentence combining and COPS), are described in the Institute of Education Sciences practice guide Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers (Graham et al., 2012). Its recommendation to teach the writing process is rated as having strong evidence. The worked examples in this guide are original and are not taken from the practice guide; the practice guide does not review or endorse them.
