Raising parental expectations of young children's writing
This child-centred philosphy does not encourage us to rigorously teach our children, in case we damage them.
However, young children are far more capable of producing good writing than you may think. I would like to encourage you to rethink your child's capabilities, so that you are less likely to limit your child's potential. Learning to write need not be dull
When we think of children achieving great things, we often think that there must have been a pushy, over-bearing parent behind them. This is not necessarily the case. Learning need not be dull. These days there are plenty of good books and programmes to teach spelling, handwriting and grammar too if you like. Although the materials we use to teach DO matter and we need to carefully choose our tools, they do not matter as much as the WAY they are used and this depends on parental expectations. The best books, used badly will have little success, but a poor book used well can achieve much. Buy what you can afford.
Parents need a vision for their children's writing
Aim high! Aim to help your child to achieve the best s/he can. Not by pushing and making the child spend long hours in tedium but by having high expectations and passing those expectations onto your child - it's exciting!
These things are core to success:
All true learning demands hard work and effort. Modern computer programmes and 'apps' give the impression that learning is easy. They reduce childrens' ability to the lowest common demoninator.
The background to the writing samples
The children who did these pieces of writing were all aged 5-6, Year 1, UK, Kindergarten USA. The children were in my class. Obviously, the writing about 'Spring' was done in spring of Year 1 - ie. half way through the school year.
These children had no prior teaching in handwriting or spelling before starting school. They all attended an inner city state school where a high percentage of the children received free school meals. Some of them were very bright, others not so. Few had much help from home. All were summer born children. They were the product of no more than one year and in most cases less, of teaching and phonic training. How to learn from the writing samples
Beside each piece I list teaching points to help you see how to evaluate your own child's writing and the steps needed to help them move forward.
These children were composing their own work as well as concentrating on spelling and handwriting as that is what is expected of them in school. In the home school I advise copy work until spelling and handwriting skills are learnt sufficiently to be done easily, before expecting the child to compose as well. You will see that some of them struggled to compose meaningful sentences. These children did have access to a 'word book'. They could ask for help with words they couldn't spell. I would write them in their word book for them to copy into their writing. If you have a child with special needs, particularly coordination problems, then do not expect this level of writing yet, rather aim towards it. Don't excuse them and say they 'can't', rather accept that they will be slower getting there. They may always struggle with the spacing of words and writing letters in proportion to each other, but keep working on these things and help them to get as close as possible to the desired outcome. Not each of the teaching points would be covered each day, but I would have them in mind to be worked on. Do notice that at this early stage of writing, my focus is not on WHAT is written, but how. In my opinion, this is where many child-centred methods go wrong. They expect the child to be able to write like a writer, before they have the tools to be able to write. At this stage, children are still coming to terms with handwriting and spelling and cannot be expected to be at a great stage of expressing themselves. With good reading material and practice, this will come without too much effort in the later years. Samples of children's writing age 5/6
Child A
Handwriting: Letters look correctly formed. I would be watching the child as s/he wrote to make sure, as some letters can be written wrongly and yet look right. The letters sit on the line correctly (they wrote on lines, but it has got washed out by the scanning process). They are more or less proportional to each other. The child uses capital letters correctly. Spaces between words are a little large, but regular. I would be wanting to encourage them to make the gap smaller. Grammar/Punctuation: This child is beginning to understand the concept of a sentence and has made some complete sentences, beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop. I would want to move him/her away from starting a sentence with the word 'and', but this would come with greater exposure to good texts and maturity. Spelling: Notice that common words are spelt correctly; (and, the, to, is, if). The child is spelling cvc/c words confidently (get, drops, eggs, frogs). There is good evidence that they are applying his/her phonic teaching of 'ar' (starts), 'ew' (new), 'ight' (night), powerful 'e' (roses, life,), 'er' (longer). I would imagine I gave them 'animals',' honey', 'leaves' and flowers. Basically I would be looking to see what he/she was able to use correctly, knowing what I had taught the child. That would tell me which phonemes had been internalised, and which needed further work. To write this ably, this child needed to be a confident speller who knew when she needed help, but s/he didn't need much help. I would be encouraging this child to read his/her work once completed to check for sense and meaning. Obviously it shows the child's understanding of the subject so far, and the good teacher would seek to build on this to help the child to come to a correct understanding: e.g. 'The bees eat honey'.
Child B
This child joined the class part way though the school year. S/he was making a good job of catching up. S/he was an able child. Handwriting: Irregularity in size and spacing is very evident. An attempt is being made to make the letters proportional to each other and they are mainly seated correctly in the right position on the line. More work would be done on this in handwriting lessons. Punctuation: The child obviously has some awareness of full stops and sometimes uses a capital letter correctly at the start of a sentence. More work on sentences would help correct this. Spelling: This child is obviously taking care with his/her spelling and many words are correct. If they are not correct, you can read them - they are logical errors and acceptable at this age. Look at 'cum' for 'come' and 'miks' for 'mix' and 'pritty' for 'pretty'. I would not overly worry about come as it probably hadn't been taught it in the 'o' saying 'u' family yet and she hadn't used it enough times to learn it as a common word. I would take more note of 'miks' as it indicates a weakness either on the letter 'x', or the 'ck' rules, if not both and I would want to correct that. A word like pretty I would have ignored at this stage. The spelling is developing nicely and that will come in due course. I would encourage this child to present their work more neatly as a longer term goal.
Child C.
Handwriting: Letters well proportioned, clear ascenders and descenders. The words tend to be a little too far spaced out, so I would encourage smaller gaps between them. Punctuation: The child has a good grasp of when to use full stops. Sentences are simple, but well phrased. Capital letters are consistently used correctly. Spelling: This child is an able child who is applying his/her phonic lessons and has learnt the spellings of several common words. S/he knows when they can't spell a word and has asked for help. Overall, Phonic work would increase the range of words that could be written (vocabulary). Practice would make sentences more interesting. Conclusion:
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Poetry for Sevens and Eights
All that has gone before applies to this age group as well. Do not forget that as children enjoy poetry, they like to sing and dance (natural dancing not gyrating to an unnatural beat which produces unnatural movements). They also like to draw and paint and make things. All of these things can naturally flow out from the reading of poems and the doing of these activities will in turn make poetry more pleasing to them.
These children can write out little poems as copy work, beautifully illustrating them.
Above all, although you will want to have in mind broader aims for your poetry reading, always be led by the children. Work with them, rather than against. Be sensitive to mood and impression which can vary with young children from day to day. You may think it a good moment to enjoy poetry - they may not: but do not fall into the error of assuming that a poor response one day necessary fore-tells a poor response every day!
Written with the help of 'The Practical Infant teacher', edited by P.B. Ballard: 1929
Welcome!
After studying for an Early Years Specialism degree (B.Ed. Hons), and teaching in mainstream education, I home-educated my own children, after my husband and I were persuaded of the need to take responsibility for bringing up our children 'in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.' (Ephesians 6:4)
Our children are now grown and I help home-educating parents teach reading and writing, especially to those with special needs. Please contact me if you think I might be able to help you.
In addition I help my son to write the Nature Observations magazines and helping Chris Eastwood with her FREE Christian Home Education daily lessons.
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In this way I can continue to provide free resources.
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Here's one I heartlily reccomend for ages 10 +.
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