To become a better writer, it takes a lot of practice and guidance. After all, how will you know that you are making mistakes if you have no idea what those mistakes are? In a regular classroom setting, you have a teacher there to watch, help and guide you through the writing process with feedback.

For the basics, the Khan Academy is a great place to start. Their site will come up a lot in my posts, but that mostly because they have been around and doing remote learning for years now. They have really become a catch-all for instructional methods to help students of all levels in an enormous range of subject areas. In the grammar series, they go over the basic parts of speech and develop into punctuation, then move into syntax. The videos and practice will help in review and beginning to understand new concepts.

Paragraph Punch is an interactive, online tool to help writers develop their paragraphs. The site takes the user through the writing process, from the introduction, pre-writing, editing and publishing phases. In understanding and practicing this process, you are sure to get better at it. Even at the beginnings, understanding the functionality and importance of strong paragraphs are the first stages to multi-paragraph writing in the form of essays through to full-length books.

I will mention NoRedInk at this time, if only because they are offering an expanded free section in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Users must sign up though, so be aware of the information that you may be asked for. As with many pay-to-play educational sites, what they offer is far deeper and individualized than free sites. While it is free, it may be worth a look to see if it is the right fit for you.

You city’s public library offers a wealth of digitally accessible language tools as well. While aimed at a broader portion of the population than our schools can, the Coquitlam Library offers resources to aid preparing for the International English Language Testing System evaluations at the academic and general level. Tense Buster is a grammar program with instructions, practice and pronunciation help.

If you are a lover of language and the way that is constructed (yes, they are out there), may I introduce Grammarphobia, a site investigating and cerebrating grammar, etymology and English language usage. They have certainly been honing their craft as their blog posts go back to 2006, where they investigate the origins of the word “cop.” Really interesting actually. Now that I’ve read it, maybe I will have to see what else they can offer as to the origins of the language.

Enjoy!