If your kindergartener or first grader stares at a blank page and says, “I don’t know what to write,” you’re not alone. Getting started is often the hardest part of writing—especially for young children who are still learning how to organize their thoughts, form letters, and create sentences.
One of the easiest ways to break through that writing block? Start with a picture.
Using visual story prompts can make writing feel less like work and more like play. A simple image—a dog in a costume, a sandcastle at the beach, a bear eating ice cream—can give young writers a starting point to build their story or sentence.
Why Pictures Help Kids Write
Many early writers (especially in kindergarten and first grade) aren’t quite ready to dream up entire stories on their own. And for some children with executive functioning challenges, that difficulty runs even deeper. For example, you might remember going to the park over the weekend, and instantly picture the sunny sky, the playground, and the ice cream you grabbed afterward. But your child might only remember bits and pieces, or needs a photo to help jog their memory. Without a clear picture in their mind, it’s harder for them to describe it in words.
That’s where photos, drawings, and picture prompts come in—they help fill in those gaps.
Where to Find Inspiring Pictures
You don’t need to be an artist or a photographer. Here are some fun, easy ways to gather pictures for writing practice:
- Storybooks: Look at a page without reading the text. Ask, “What do you think is happening here?”
- Old magazines: Cut out interesting pictures and glue them onto blank pages for instant writing prompts.
- Your own camera roll: Scroll through recent photos and choose one to write about.
- Printed story starters: Many workbooks (like mine) include ready-to-go visual prompts.
- Online images: Find child-safe images using parent-monitored search engines or kid-friendly picture sites.
Make It a Game
Want to boost creativity even more? Try these simple writing games:
- Story Cubes: Roll dice with pictures and challenge your child to use all the images in a silly sentence or short story.
- Pick & Pass: Pick a random picture, write one sentence, then pass it back and forth, adding new parts to the story together.
- Write What You See: Set a timer for 3 minutes. Your child writes as much as they can about a picture before the timer beeps!
Looking for an Easy Way to Get Started?
If you’re a teacher, parent, homeschooler, or caregiver looking for a screen-free way to help your child build writing confidence, my printable Picture Prompt Sentence Writing Workbook might be just what you need.
With 88 visual story starters, this workbook is filled with seasonal, and holiday-themed pictures perfect for kids in kindergarten through 2nd grade. Each page encourages creative thinking, builds fine motor skills, and includes light occupational therapy tips to support developing writers.
It’s a simple, low-stress way to make writing time fun, meaningful, and consistent.
Occupational therapy tip: If your child struggles to describe past events, try taking more photos of daily activities. Let them bring printed pictures to school as a journal-writing aid or keep a small photo album at home to flip through during writing time
About the Author
I am a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant (COTA) and have been working in a public school system for more than 25 years. My resources can be found on TPT, BOOM Learning, Made by Teachers, Classful, and Your Therapy Source. I appreciate your interest wherever you wish to shop.
I also now have workbooks on Amazon.
My mission is to help you find creative ideas to incorporate fine motor, visual perception, gross motor, and social-emotional learning into your lessons.
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