TEACHING WRITING

                                        

I am going to focus on teaching writing. It is very important to know that when someone teaches writing also it is necessary teaching reading. Both are indispensable and the base for the development of our knowledge. After said this, we have to find some answers relating to teaching writing. May be the first question will be why is writing especially difficult for children? It is because it is not usually about “the here and the now” (writing is the opposite of reading and it is more difficult) and it takes a long time to master it. Besides, traditionally, it is better priory of error correction over content (children need correct their writing to learn the appropriate pattern). Another question could be for instance how can writing skills be developed? First children start copying, then they do a guided writing and finally they will finish with a free writing. This is a process that everybody needs to start writing. When children copying, it is mechanical, they do not think in anything, but when they finished with free writing, they think a little bit, because it is meaningful.

We need to know a global definition about writing. For this reason, I am going to make a definition of writing: Writing is thinking of what you wish to say, turning your thoughts into words, expressing opinions, describing real and imaginary worlds, playing with sounds and words and poetry.

Another interesting thing is the tools for writing, since children have to access to a variety of tools for writing such as chalk, paint, crayons, etc. In addition to this, they have to access to different surfaces for writing such as boards, paper, computers, tablets, shaped books, etc.

                                         


                                                         
                                                       

Besides there are different contexts and genres in which children are going to work. As teachers, we must provide them a wide range of contexts such as greeting cards, diaries, home-made books, word banks, lists, letters, stories, comic strips, plays, etc. After seeing all these types of aspects, they will understand and will know the differences between them and to use these in an appropriate way.

When we are going to teach writing, children need motivation. We have to give them plenty of opportunities to write in different contexts. Also, we need to know the importance of the audience, not just the teacher; since children have to be an active part in this process. Another thing to take into account is why we write, because it is very important choosing the convenient moments and children will learn why they writing. A part from that, children have to write to communicate something to someone related to the real life. And the last feature that takes part in motivation is that writing must be meaningful, since it must have a direct relationship between meaningful and writing. If there is not a connection between these aspects, writing would not make sense.

We have to talk about the formal approaches to teaching literacy skills, because it necessary knowing how children should learn to write and also to read. We can find four aspects inside it. First, the emergent literacy (text); second, the language experience approach (sentence); third, whole words/ words approach (word); and finally, phonic teaching (letters/sounds).

The most important thing in this process is pre-writing, since we have to give them some tools and explain some activities which help them to do appropriately. In addition to that, in the same way that reading, there are some objectives in pre-writing. These objectives are: developing positive attitudes to writing (and reading) skills; learning about basic print conventions; taking part in school events related to writing (and reading); being able to copy short sentences with a personal meaning; learning some words by sight; starting to recognize some words and letters in books; and starting to learn the Alphabet. Another interesting thing is that, the types of activities that as teacher, we can present to them related with pre-writing. There are some examples such as make a pictogram (word level), design a T-shirt (sentence level), acrostic poetry, writing greeting cards, etc. When they do writing activities, we have to control it. We have to correct the facts (correct mistakes in sentences), re-ordering words (with cards for example), tables, etc.

                                                       

In conclusion, both reading and writing skills are necessary in our life and in our future. We have to develop these aspects to create a wealth of knowledge and have more possibilities in our professional future.