CHAPTER 14
Teaching children to write
How do I know what I think until I see what I say. I am the world’s greatest rewriter. To write simply is as difficult as to be good.
E M Forster
James A Michener
W Somerset Maugham
Many well-known writers have commented on the writing process, pointing out that writing is a way of thinking and that writing for others to read takes a great deal of rewriting so that the message is effective (see Murray 1968, pp. 230–45). Young children at 3 and 4 years of age engage in serious authorship of books of various genres. They write information texts and narratives, and the teacher plays an important role, often sitting side-by-side with the young author, discussing their writing (Wood & Glover 2008). The teacher is vitally important in teaching writing in the years before school. Coker (2006) found that the effectiveness of the teacher in the very first year of school had an impact on children’s later writing quality and output. We write for ourselves and others, and for many different purposes: to communicate ideas, to create stories, to organise information, to make lists and notes. In the following case study, a teacher teaches writing with a real-life purpose.
CASE STUDY
Writing for authentic purposes In the classroom, the 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds with the help of their teacher, Mandy, had listed all the jobs in the classroom on a chart—and declared them vacant. Twenty classroom jobs—such as checking off the names of children attending, carrying the lunch money to the canteen, taking the green box to the library, emptying the rubbish bin, chairing the class meeting—were declared available for the children to apply for. This process of declaring all classroom jobs vacant,
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inviting children to make a formal application and then selecting people for jobs
