Teaching Writing
Every child should have the chance to learn to write well. Of course, some children just soak it all up like a sponge, and the learning looks effortless. You only need to explain something once and they’ve got it and they just seem to have an inexhaustible well of brilliant ideas.
For the great majority of children who aren't this lucky, it's down to good English teaching to make sure they leave primary school able to write clearly and lucidly, with an awareness of their audience. Good command of spelling, punctuation and grammar all play an important part.
Through lots and lots of time spent teaching children to write, we’ve hit on a system that works really well for us here at Shakespeare and More. By all means, have a read and perhaps steal some bits to add to your method.
In our humble opinion, we think that:
1. To be able to write well, children need exposure to the very best language possible. That means lots of high-quality talk and dialogue and the chance to listen to, read and talk about the very best books and stories.
2. Children get better at writing by being given the opportunity to write a lot. The more they write and the more they think about what they’re writing, the better they’ll get. We think they should be producing at least one piece of quality writing every week.
3. Children need to be taught how to use grammar and punctuation in context. Children best learn to use grammar and punctuation through the context of their own writing, rather than lots of exercises detached from real writing. They do need to be taught how to use different language features though.
4. Redrafting is a brilliant thing to do. One vital thing we can teach children is that when they put their pen down after writing the first draft of something, they are not even halfway finished. There is editing, improving and redrafting to be done in order to produce the very best writing they are capable of.
5. High quality feedback leads to great learning. Perhaps the single most important factor in teaching children to write well is the feedback they receive. If we can tell them what they’ve done well, so they keep doing it, and what could be improved (and give them time to put it right), each piece of writing will be a little better than the last. This is the most important stage of the writing process.
So, how does it work? Have a look:
The Writing Process
For the great majority of children who aren't this lucky, it's down to good English teaching to make sure they leave primary school able to write clearly and lucidly, with an awareness of their audience. Good command of spelling, punctuation and grammar all play an important part.
Through lots and lots of time spent teaching children to write, we’ve hit on a system that works really well for us here at Shakespeare and More. By all means, have a read and perhaps steal some bits to add to your method.
In our humble opinion, we think that:
1. To be able to write well, children need exposure to the very best language possible. That means lots of high-quality talk and dialogue and the chance to listen to, read and talk about the very best books and stories.
2. Children get better at writing by being given the opportunity to write a lot. The more they write and the more they think about what they’re writing, the better they’ll get. We think they should be producing at least one piece of quality writing every week.
3. Children need to be taught how to use grammar and punctuation in context. Children best learn to use grammar and punctuation through the context of their own writing, rather than lots of exercises detached from real writing. They do need to be taught how to use different language features though.
4. Redrafting is a brilliant thing to do. One vital thing we can teach children is that when they put their pen down after writing the first draft of something, they are not even halfway finished. There is editing, improving and redrafting to be done in order to produce the very best writing they are capable of.
5. High quality feedback leads to great learning. Perhaps the single most important factor in teaching children to write well is the feedback they receive. If we can tell them what they’ve done well, so they keep doing it, and what could be improved (and give them time to put it right), each piece of writing will be a little better than the last. This is the most important stage of the writing process.
So, how does it work? Have a look:
The Writing Process
