Articles:
The Bookstore
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Teaching children to write is an exciting challenge for teachers.
Even in the early years and especially as children become more
accomplished, writing is seen and taught as a process which involves
several steps:
Preparing for a topic
In the early years, this might
simply be a discussion about a topic to give the children context
and relevance (why are we writing about this). On a more
complex level, it could mean a detailed group discussion first,
research via different media (books, internet, newspapers) or even
gathering opinions via a survey which the students themselves have
constructed.
They can also discuss the purpose of their
writing, who will be reading it and how they want to present it.
Visualising the purpose and the (exciting) end results can serve as
a powerful motivator for children to put their best efforts into a
piece of work.
Writing a draft
After the research and planning, comes the first draft. In
this step, students will start to put their ideas down on paper. The
focus, from the teacher and student point of view should be on the
content, with perhaps some brief ideas on presentation.
Spelling, punctuation and other writing conventions are dealt with
later. For older students, it may be a time of more detailed
research. For young ones, it may simply mean writing out a
simple story or sentence on a piece of paper before turning it into
a book.
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