Teaching+Writing

TEACHING WRITING

Teaching students to write is another important part of the literacy block and involves a number of processes/ strategies. Hill 2006 believes that ‘the most important idea when teaching writing is to ensure that children can see a purpose for their writing.’ By helping children read and critique each other’s writing can help children understand that writing may sometimes be for self, but most of the time it is for an audience of peers (Hill pp306). A good activity to help teach children to write is to introduce them to a range of written texts and ask them to write a retell or their own version of the story for an audience so that this audience has a basic understanding of the text that they have just seen and read. A number of strategies can be used to help teach children to write and these include: Modelled writing, this is where the teacher holds the pen and the students observe the writing process in action. Shared writing is when the teacher responds to the writing ideas given by the children. Mainly the teacher holds the pen but sometimes the students are given the opportunity to add some words themselves. Both the teacher and the students share the planning and decision making about what they are going to write. Guided writing is when the students hold the pen and either in groups or independently with the guidance and help of the teacher attempt all the writing themselves. Independent writing is when the students are on their own, they choose the topic in which they are going to write about and do all the writing themselves. (Hill pp299) Another important aspect of writing to teach children is genre. There are three broad genres which make it a little easier for children to learn to write as they have a structure for each to follow. Teachers should teach their students about recount (where the writer recounts an events and describes an event step by step), narrative (a story completely made up from the imagination of the writer) and procedural (a piece of writing that describes step by step how to do something, e.g., how to make a cake, how to kick a football etc). (Wells 2008). Teaching these three genres is an important part of teaching writing in the classroom because without them the students have no structure to follow when they are attempting their writing. Teaching students to write is a large part of teaching in the early years and is included in the early years literacy block, a good foundation is needed in the early years to help students as they progress through their schooling.