First of all I would like to point out that I was extremely excited to see "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" used in an activity at the beginning of this chapter. I have my copy of the book sitting in my room here at college, and I having been trying to think of ways to use it because it was one of my all time favorites as a child. I like the idea of having students notice the rhyming pattern in the story in order to create their own rhymes with the same pattern. Anyways, for the rest of this post I would like to discuss patterns I noticed in the process of learning how to write as a child grows, and then I would like to talk about some of things mentioned in the chapter regarding the teacher's and parent's role in helping children's writing skills develop.
As I was reading the descriptions for how children learn at different ages, I noticed some patterns in the ways children learn to write. When a young child first begins to write on paper they are just experimenting with the new medium and the mechanical process, but very quickly with the help of encouragement and observations of adults writing children understand that writing has a purpose. The first purpose they notice is communication. They learn to communicate messages first through pictures, then they mimic symbols and letters, and eventually the child is involved in writing real letters and begins spelling. Children are excited about this learning process because there is a genuine purpose for learning to write, and because they get to explore with the new things they learn. I think that throughout literacy education we give students new purposes to write, and the more authentic the purpose, the more students are willing to participate.
Other than creating purposes for children to write, teachers and guardians must model writing and they encourage children with positive reinforcement. I think most of us already knew that positive reinforcement and modeling is important when children are learning to write, but there were many other suggestions that I had never thought about. The most important one seemed to be that children need to invent and reinvent their ideas about writing and test them in order to learn. So, we need to grant that freedom so students can go through this process. Having children practice something over and over instead of letting them explore can also take the joy out of writing. I also loved the idea of creating good writing environments, both at home and at school, so children have the means necessary to explore, invent, and reinvent strategies. These environments not only provide materials to write and draw(crayons, paper, keyboard), but they also have materials that students can use to explore new ideas and forms of writing such as newspapers, internet, and books. Another interesting thing the book mentioned about these writing environments was organizing things in a consistent manner and having a comfortable yet functional area for children to write.
I agree that having students just practice over and over can take the joy out of writing. I feel it is important to give students options when they write to make it less of a chore. If instead of saying all the time to write it in a certain way, if we gave them options more often they might enjoy writing more. There are people who enjoy writing poetry, essays, stories, memoirs or various other types of writings. If we allow our students to sometimes get the option of how to write what ever they are writing they will be able to explore different types of writing on their own, and practice with a type they really enjoy to write with. This isn't to say give them an option every single time they write, because it is important for them to learn several different ways to write, but when you can I feel it should be an option for the students.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of your post. The book "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" is a great book for rhyming pattern. This book is so fun for children. They can sometimes guess the words, it always has their attention, and there are so many projects that you can do with that book, A book like that where it is silly and fun but they are still learning so much. I agree that a parents role in teaching students is so important. It is very important for us to expand the thoughts of our students but it is also important to bring that home with them. There is no teacher that wouldn't agree with positive reinforcement. We have to encourage our students to keep pushing themselves but at a pace that they are comfortable for them. Each of our students will struggle with different parts of reading and writing. That is why its so important to have different types of teaching methods and strategies in the classroom. I love how you brought up the different materials that you can have in the classroom to expand our students minds, and just new exciting ways for them to learn. All together it was a great post.
ReplyDeleteHi Cooper! I completely agree with all of the things that you said in your post. I especially liked your last paragraph. I agree that it is so important to create a comfortable environment for students to write in so that they enjoy writing. I think that this is why it's important to allow students to draw along with their writing as well. Many students enjoy drawing for fun, and getting them to draw and write together allows them to really enjoy writing. I also think it's really important for parents to get involved and create enjoyable environments for students to write in. I think that having paper and pens and writing utensils is a good way to do this, but another way to make it enjoyable for children is by providing them with things like chalk or dry erase boards. These are fun things that allow for fine motor skills but also provide an enjoyable writing environment.
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