In constructing a meaningful text, students at any age need to be considering why the text is being written and who will read it. This will assist them to make decisions about both the content of the written piece and its form.
Christie, F. Language education in the primary years. Duke, N. Essential elements of fostering and teaching reading comprehension. Farstrup Eds. What research has to say about reading instruction. Gibbons, P. Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning: Teaching English language learners in the mainstream classroom 2nd ed.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Hammond, J. Scaffolding: Teaching and learning in language and literacy education. Pearson, P. When students use their learned knowledge in a practical and real-world way, they begin to see the connections between what they learn in school and what goes on in the world around them. When students are young and still in school, they may seem to forget about the world around them and focus on the immediate: their friends, classmates, school, and home. However, when educators incorporate learned knowledge from nonfiction texts with writing strategies that aim at real-world issues or real things in the world It is these strategies that enable students to participate in and actively create their own knowledge.
High levels of scaffolding are first needed when students are beginner writers or still struggling with writing. Before students are expected to connect the real-world with learned content-area knowledge, they must use reading and writing strategies with teacher aid.
This process of steps ensures that the student understands the procedures of the strategy and utilizes them to translate content-area knowledge into meaningful and purposeful activities. Interactive and Shared writing are just two strategies that teachers can use with their students to begin to grow competent writers.
They both have an element of scaffolding and are great ways to open the doors of writing to young or struggling students. Students in shared and interactive writing are the writers. The teacher does not write for the students, but rather, she plays the role of "expert" as she writes with the students. Through constant teaching, these complex writing processes eventually become increasingly well-orchestrated, internalised and automatic, especially where such processes are articulated.
It is saying difficult things aloud that helps us all, in the end, to be able to say them silently in our heads. Eventually, the children hear the questions they need to ask and aspects of writing become an automatic part of their repertoire.
They find they can hold an internal dialogue with themselves about the choices available and consider how effective a particular word or phrase will be, or how well their writing rereads.
Writing processes have to become automatic habits. This is a form of group teaching, focused on children who have similar needs, based upon assessment of their writing and observation of how they write. The teacher helps children remind themselves of targets, progress points and writing processes.
The model and toolkit is revisited. Try writing on mini-whiteboards as children are more likely to experiment, before copying up into their journals.
The main point about guided work is that the children should be doing most of the thinking and writing. It is a scaffolded bridge from dependence towards independence. Take time to reflect. Writers nearly always read their work aloud, and this is an important habit to develop with children. Make it a habit to always re-read a paragraph through and ask the children the following questions:. Mini-writing Children write, on a specific focus, using mini whiteboards for immediate feedback.
Transforming Writing is a teacher research project into formative assessment and writing.
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