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Overviews of research on writing
The national tests have indicated that writing scores lag behind reading
generally. Here are a few overviews of what researchers are saying
about writing.
Rethinking the teaching of writing
in schools
The UKRA's journal, Reading, vol. 34, no.2, July 2000, outlines several
findings from researchers and practitioners on potential interventions
and methods teachers can use to improve children's writing. The UKRA's focus
this year, according to the editor, Teresa Grainger, has been on aspects
of writing and creativity. Grainger points out that these elements are necessary
if educationalists are to solve the pressing problem of poor writing skills
among children entering KS2. She argues that "bridges need to be built between
widely accepted and required pedagogical practices, such as shared writing
and imitative modelling, and the more open-ended nature of activities such
as improvisational drama, playful poetic exploration and oral storytelling."
Here are a few suggestions from researchers for developing children's writing
from the early years onward.
Writing in the early years:
(Lesley Clark, "Lessons from the nursery: children as writers in early
years education," Reading, vol. 34, no.2, 2000)
Lesley Clark stresses the importance of developing children's writing in
the early years and examines both traditional pedagogy and National Literacy
Strategy (NLS) approaches to writing at Reception and KS1. Her article highlights
teachers' concerns with the NLS regarding the lack of support in the strategy
for the promotion of play and orality, which develop the child's role as
a writer. Furthermore, early years practitioners involved in her study
are concerned that there is not enough flexibility within the NLS framework
to develop the child's creativity through writing. Instead, the framework
has fostered transcriptional skills rather than developing compositional
competence. Teachers must be creative in their approaches and adopt
strategies that involve the child in his/her own scaffolding of the learning
process.
Role playing:
( Margaret Cook, "Writing and role play: a case for inclusion," and Myra
Barrs, "The reader in the writer," Reading, vol. 34, no.2, 2000)
Both Margaret Cook and Myra Barrs argue the case for promoting role playing
in the teaching of writing from slightly different angles.
Cook emphasises the success of role playing for increasing children's knowledge
and use of genre in Reception. The purpose of role play, in this sense,
is to give children control of their own language use and to contextualise
oral and written language in what Cook calls " real life knowledge." The
study of two groups of six children of varying ability involved physical
representations of a genre (narrative, recount, procedure, report, explanation,
argument and persuasion) and discussions between the children and participating
parents and the reading and writing of appropriate texts (story, letter
list, prescription, notice, instructions etc.). Both the children and adults
became adept at changing roles and the parents developed different teaching
strategies (scaffolding and modeling) which they could use at home.
Children learned about a range of oral genres and related text forms and
developed problem solving techniques.
Barrs develops the notion of "children working and writing in role in response
to literary texts." Her research involving six Y5 teachers in five
primary schools in greater London investigated whether challenging literature
has any particular impact on children's learning of writing and whether
there are any particular teaching methods that develop writing. A
drama session introduced in the literacy hour enabled children to "relate
much more closely and personally" to the text and enabled the children to
write stories in the role of a character. Children delved more deeply into
the meaning of the text and used language creatively. She, likewise, stresses
the value of reading aloud. Her criticism of the NLS framework is that there
is not enough time for children to work on longer narratives or to refine
their work. Teachers in her study extended the literacy hour by half an
hour to allow time for extended writing.
Talking about writing:
(Eve Bearne, "Classroom research: Talking about writing", The Primary
English, vol. 5, no. 4, 2000.)
One way of improving children's writing is to get them to talk about their
work. Eve Bearne of Homerton College, Cambridge, suggests that writing
can be introduced into the curriculum by getting children to write their
own books and then to reflect on the process of writing. She argues that
guided writing sessions with an oral component can reinforce the learning
of children who require extra support with their reading.
Bearne tested her theory on a Year 3/4 class and found that children of
all abilities responded well to the guided writing sessions. The children
were asked to think about planning, note-making, drafting, and authorship.
Most importantly, the experiment demonstrated that the weak reader's knowledge
of texts is accessible through discussion when it is often unnoticed in
regular reading sessions. Boys, often inhibited writers and weak readers,
benefited most from learning to reflect on learning process and to articulate
their reasons for the chosen structure of their writing.
Collaborative writing:
(Keith Topping, Jillian Nixon, Jennifer Sutherland and Fiona Yarrow, "
Paired Writing: a framework for effective collaboration," Reading,
vol. 34, no.2, 2000)
These researchers make the point that "writing is increasingly seen as a
social rather than solitary activity". Children, it is argued, benefit from
a structured model of peer assisted and collaborative writing, notably the
method of Paired Writing, designed at the http://www.dundee.ac.uk/eswce/specialist-centres/cpl/
Department of Psychology, University of Dundee.
The method consists of several steps and questions that
enable either a parent or another child to assist the
writer. In this case, the study focused on child tutors who
could benefit from the role as helper and hone his/her own
literacy skills. In general, the tutor helps the
writer to generate ideas, draft the paper and read the draft.
The writer also reads his/her work aloud. Both the helper
and writer edit the draft, looking at meaning, order, spellings
and punctuation and produce the best copy. The final copy
is then evaluated together. (See the article for the full
outline of the procedure. or
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/eswce/staff/kjtopping/publications/plearning.php .
Three projects using this system in different ways were evaluated and demonstrated
the benefits of this method of learning:
-The Nixon Project: used Paired Writing in two parallel mixed-ability
classrooms of 5 year olds, involving 11 year old cross-age peer
tutors from a higher class, who were weak writers themselves. Both the
tutor and tutee in the Paired Writing intervention benefited and were
eager to continue the programme. Class teachers of the older children
acting as tutors noticed improved confidence.
-The Sutherland Project: compared same-ability reciprocal role
and cross-ability fixed role pairing among 8 year olds. Cross-ability
pairs, however, benefited most, particularly the weaker writers. Same-ability
pairs still showed better performance than their control groups.
-The Yarrow Project: studied cross-ability peer tutoring pairs
of 10 year olds with behavioural problems. Paired writers showed
significant gains compared to children who wrote alone and showed more
positive self-esteem as writers. Both tutor and writer gained by this
intervention.
Further reading:
Nigel Hall, "Write from the start"Literacy
Today, June 1998.
Gemma Moss, "Boys and non-fiction:
cause or effect?" Literacy Today, Dec. 1999.
Ann Browne, "Developing writing" in Jackie Marsh and Elaine Hallet, eds.,
Desirable Literacies: approaches to language and literacy in the early
years, London: Paul Chapman, 1999.
Richard Fox, "Assessing writing at Key Stage 1: some problems and suggested
solutions";
Olivia O'Sullivan, "Understanding spelling" Reading, vol. 34, no.
1, 2000.
Roy Corden, "Reading-writing connections: the importance of interactive
discourse, "English in Education, NATE, vol. 34, no.2, 2000.
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