In this guide
"Show, don't tell" is one of the most common pieces of writing advice kids hear, and one of the most confusing. What does it actually mean to show something in writing?
Telling gives the reader a conclusion. Showing gives the reader the evidence and lets them reach the conclusion themselves.
Telling: Maya was nervous.
Showing: Maya's hands were sweaty. She read the first line of her speech three times and still couldn't remember it.
The reader never sees the word "nervous," but they know exactly how Maya feels.
Why descriptive writing matters
From Grade 4 on, kids are asked to write stories, personal narratives and descriptive paragraphs. Teachers look for writing that creates a picture in the reader's mind. Descriptive skills also make opinion essays stronger, because a vivid example is more convincing than a vague one.
Tool 1: Use the five senses
Most kids write only about what they see. Ask them to check all five senses:
- Sight: What colours, shapes and movements are there?
- Sound: What can you hear? Is it loud, soft, sudden?
- Smell: Is there a smell in the air?
- Touch: What does it feel like? Hot, sticky, rough, icy?
- Taste: Is there a taste? (Great for food, the ocean, a snowy day.)
Plain: The beach was nice.
With senses: The sand burned my feet, the waves crashed and hissed, and the air tasted like salt.
Your child doesn't need all five in every sentence. Two senses beyond sight usually make a description come alive.
Tool 2: Pick strong verbs
Verbs carry a lot of meaning. "Walked" tells us someone moved. "Tiptoed," "stomped" and "trudged" tell us how they moved, and often how they felt.
Play a quick game: say a plain verb and see how many stronger ones your child can list in 30 seconds. "Ate" might become gobbled, nibbled, devoured, munched, picked at.
Tool 3: Be specific
Specific nouns do the describing for you.
| General | Specific |
|---|---|
| a dog | a golden retriever |
| a tree | a crooked maple |
| food | warm banana bread |
| a car | a rusty pickup truck |
"A golden retriever" creates a picture instantly, without any extra adjectives.
Tool 4: Show feelings through actions
Instead of naming a feeling, describe what a character does, says or notices because of it.
- Excited: bouncing on her toes, talking too fast
- Angry: slammed the door, face turned red
- Sad: stared at the floor, pushed his plate away
- Scared: froze, heart pounding, held her breath
Try it: Rewrite each sentence without the feeling word. Leo was happy. · The class was bored. · Grandpa was surprised.
Don't overdo it
Kids who have just discovered adjectives sometimes pile them on: "The big, dark, scary, spooky, creepy old house." Teach them to choose the one or two details that matter most. Good description is selective.
A simple rule: if a detail doesn't help the reader see, feel or understand something new, leave it out.
Practice at home
Mystery object. Put an object in a bag. Your child describes it using touch only, and you guess what it is.
Window description. Pick a window and write three sentences about what's outside, using at least three senses.
Upgrade a sentence. Take one plain sentence from a recent school assignment and rewrite it using a strong verb and a sense other than sight.
Where this fits
Descriptive writing builds directly on sentence expansion, and it's the heart of good narrative writing. In Smart Little Writers, kids practise enriched, descriptive sentences in the first stage, then use them in multi-paragraph stories and descriptive essays later on.