Teaching Children to Write from the Start
-
Upload
paul-rogers -
Category
Education
-
view
998 -
download
0
description
Transcript of Teaching Children to Write from the Start
Teaching Children to Write from the Start: Ability, Culture, Meaning and Mechanics
October 17, 2012
An Overview
• An interactive conversation – You are the experts on the children at your school
• Some background about writing and writing development
Why focus on writing?
• Writing is a key element of academic success.
• Writing is a powerful learning too that supports both understanding and remembering.
• Writing is a key ability for full participation in the 21st century.
2 out of 3 U.S. students fail to meet grade level demands in writing.
When does writing begin?
• After children learn to read?• When they begin to write words
conventionally?
A Different Perspective
• Literacy development begins long before formal schooling
• Children learn about reading and writing simultaneously in their everyday experiences
Children’s literacy is constructive and multi-modal
Learning to write is about cognitive development and social participation
Children engage in writing to explore the characteristics of
writing materialsthe cognitive development
Children write to engage in positive interactions with adults and to form relationships with peersthe social participation
What motivates children to learn to walk and talk? To learn
anything?
By what mechanisms do children learn to walk and talk? Do children learn anything?
Focus on Engagement
The Basic Skills
• Spelling and punctuation• Thinking, memory, and language
a(speaking), plus fine motor skills
Children’s handwriting develops sequentially “through stages of
drawing, scribbling, the making of letterlike forms, moving to well-learned units, invented spelling, and conventional orthography”
(Boscolo, 2008)
Scribbling
Drawing
Random Letters
Invented spelling
Conventional Spelling
Writing before schooling can best be described as exploration …
But … there’s more
• What hypotheses do children develop about writing prior to entering school?
• How do children being to manage and use multiple sign systems?
Identify the background knowledge that all children possess … learning
revolves around the child’s mind not the teachers.
Not convention but intention
In schoolchildren learn what they are
taught.
So focus on the multiple purposes for writing like …
Why do YOU write?
Children’s purposes for writing are more related
to the amount and types of
exposure they have than age or socio-
economic status (Harste et al. 1984)
Identify the Roots of Writing Purposes Found
in What People Do
Authentic Purposes (Brainstrom)
Authentic Purposes• Telling what I’ve learned (reports)• Describing an experience (travel writing)• Keeping notes (journaling)• Comparing ideas (reviews)• Conducting research (creating knowledge)• Analyzing problems (making the world a better
place)• Sharing happiness and wisdom (fictional
narratives)• Introducing an important person (profiles)
Create an environment for writing
Create a Writing Center
– Provide supplies and journals• Everyone gets their own journal binders work very well
– Most important ingredient is YOU (close and sustained support)
– Open ended and semi-structured– Lots of “prewriting”
• Lists• Maps• Proto writing• Name writing
Integrating writing with art
Linking reading and writing
What happened in “Click Clack Moo Cows That Type”?
Strategies
• Write every day• Revisit and reread • Share the writing as a group• Letter tracing• Name writing
Name Writing
• A window into children’s emergent writing• The child’s name is often the first word they
begin to write• The child first learns to recognize letters in
their name, especially the first letter (own name advantage)
Name writing tends to progress in the following manner:
• (a) scribble; (b) linear scribble; (c) separate symbols, with letter-like forms; (d) name written with correct letters and mockletters/symbols; (e) name generally correct, with some letters reversed or omitted; and (f ) name written correctly
Use Name Writing with Self-Portraits
Look for lots of little transitions
Strategies
• Focus on what’s RIGHT!• It is the act of writing that needs
encouragement• Write with your students
Strategies
• Extrinsic rewards??• Using mentor texts
– Supplied by both teacher and child• Share what You write• Celebrate writing• Writing floats on a sea of talk
Evaluation
• Respond to completion• Respond to pride of authorship• Encourage students to try out ideas
Freedom of Choice
• Varying the amounts and types of input– Experiment– Let’s spend the next few minutes writing anything
we want
What are the most important elements of of
written language that children need to learn?
Conventions or mechanics
Conventions and mechanics
Beginning
• Does a story have a beginning?• Does everything have a beginning?
Middle
• What comes after the beginning?• Does a story have a middle?• Do you remember what happened in the
middle?• The Climax is the final event in the middle
before the problem is solved or resolved?
End
• Does a story have an end?• What happened at the end?
Retelling
• Guided• Individual
Pictures, key words, and mapping
Beginning 1/4
Middle 1/2
End 1/4
• Have the children label the parts• Draw pictures to illustrate the things that they
think are important in each part of the story
Retell the story using the pictures
Key words• K-2 Ask and write down the words the
children say• 3-5 – Use questions• Who were the main characters? Where were
they? Was there a problem? What was it?
Key wordsBeginningMax, wolf suit, mother, Wild Thing, “I’ll eat you up!” bed
MiddleRoom, Max, forst, tamed, ocean, magic, boat, trick, sailed, kind, wild things, wild rumpus, roared, lonely
EndHome, supper, room, hot
Rewriting the model story
• Once the children have had enough experience so they understand the basic parts and can retell the story, they will be able to rewrite it using their own words.
Write an original story
• What is a story?• What are the parts of a story?
Instructions
• Now that you’ve learned so much about the parts of a story you will enjoy writing your own story. Let’s write a story together. It can be funny, or spooky, or you can write an animal story, or one about your family and friends. The only thing you need to remember is that your story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Thank you for your attention