Many children are very weak in writing. Many students will score an average of 12/20 in their writing when they reach Primary 3. If a child can score above 15/20, he/she can be considered to be exceptional. Above 18/20 is very rare.
"Many students will score an average of 12/20 in their writing when they reach Primary 3."
How is this so?
Let's go back in time a bit. I love writing as you can see from this blog. I write both fiction and non-fiction. It did not occur naturally to me. I remembered very clearly that I hated writing compositions in my primary school days.
During those days, writing was a chore. Nobody told me why I got a good score and why I got a bad score. The scores seemed random. After a few rounds, I gave up on putting in effort. My writing was never pinned on the class notice board. My writing was never read out to the class. No matter how much effort I put in.
On top of that, writing was boring. I wrote on things that were supposed to be. I found a wallet and returned to the owner. I saw an old lady standing in the bus and gave up my seat to her. I saw someone tearing up a book in the library, so I told the librarian about it. Everything I write is predictable and BORING. I did not know how to improve on my stories.
"On top of that, writing is boring. I wrote on things that are supposed to be."
My friends who were better in English told me to read more books. I took up reading and read A LOT of books. However, my score for writing did not go up even the number of books I read went up. Reading alone did not help.
What was happening?
Then I read up on how to write. It was eye-opening. After trawling through many books. There is only one conclusion.
'How to write' is way overrated. The techniques on writing will almost destroy any love for writing. Any templates stifle creativity and kill the joy for writing. The question should be 'Why and for who I write".
"The techniques on writing will almost destroy any love for writing."
During my days of teaching, I asked many teachers how to write a good piece of work. Most of them gave me answers that my primary school teachers gave me. I suspect very few people know how to write well. In fact, I rarely see any teachers writing good compositions. It seemed like it is taken as a fact that all teachers can write well.
Please do not get me wrong. Some teachers can write really well. But it is too far-fetched to assume all teachers can write well.
Now, if they cannot write well, how can they teach writing to a child?
I am not claiming that I can write very well, but I dare to say I put in effort in researching on methods/reasons to help my students write better. There are mainly six strategies I use to help my students write well. I am showing you three of them below.
1. Structure
This is the most important part for writing. Structure does not mean templates. (Templates means memorising model compositions.) It is a way of sequencing to help a child think of the cause and effect in a piece of writing. This is exceptionally important for younger students in P1 and P2. They need some kind of scaffolding to help them organise their ideas. I use the CSPACE structure in my tuition.
(To know more about the CSPACE structure, sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/WDj6j. A free ebook on writing is going out in the newsletter on 20th July.)
2. Conferencing and Recognition
Nothing encourages a child more than saying the good points of his/her writing. For me, it is very hard to not touch on the areas for improvement. So, I break the conferencing into two parts. The first part, I read the essay to the tuition group and list the good points of the essay. The second part, I pull the child out and touch on the areas for improvement in a one-to-one setting.
"Nothing encourages a child more than discussing the good points of his/her writing."
Conferencing is the ONLY way to help a child improve on his/her writing. Any writing with just a score is totally useless to the child if nothing was pointed out to the child. The child will continue to write at the same level in the next writing.
Usually, I will touch on the plot of the story during conferencing. For grammar and spelling, I will create worksheets to help the child instead of highlighting them during the conferencing. Talking and discussion will not lead to improvement in grammar and spelling.
3. Questioning (Learning Moment)
This is more random and is tied in to the comprehension passages or any popular movies. For example, a few months back, 'Frozen' was a very popular movie. Most of my students watched it and they were discussing it before tuition. I joined in the discussion with them. I asked them about the plot and the ending.
- Who was the bad guy?
- Did you know that he was the bad guy in the beginning?
- How did you know?
- Was the writer hiding something about the bad guy?
- By knowing that he was the bad guy later, did it make the movie more interesting?
- In your writing, what are some things you can 'hide' from the reader and tell it only near the ending of the story?
Before I end this post, please go and surprise your child. Write a story for your child today and see his/her reaction. Then ask him/her to write a story for you. If writing one story is not enough, write five. Eventually, your child will catch on the 'writing bug'.
As parents, we need to practise writing too.
Cheers!
(Sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/WDj6j for monthly tips on how to motivate your child to study. A free ebook is included in the newsletter.)
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