Teaching writing in the early years of school.

Fellowes, Janet

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

It is fundamental to the beginning writer's development that a positive attitude to, and motivation for, the act of writing is established and maintained. However, the general primary school focus on text forms in writing lessons has had bearing on a decline in young learners' motivation and interest for writing. The central tasks of writing lessons need to be appropriate to children's level of concept and skill development. Teachers need to balance the establishment of strong foundation writing skills with developing an understanding of how writing functions as a communicative tool. Too often of late, the former is neglected for achievement of the latter. Pedagogical choices need to ensure a focus on sentence and word level teaching, not just on whole text composition using a standard structural formula.

Recently, I was observing a Year 1 class involved in a writing experience where each child was producing a report on kangaroos. The teacher had explained the task the day before, she had modelled an example text, had carefully guided the class in identifying the text structure and had provided a report planning framework in which the headings were identified. The children then used a framework sheet to plan their own report. This was done with a lot of help from the teacher. Children were assisted to write words and phrases addressing each of the headings on the sheet. On the day I observed, the children were using their plan to write a final copy of a report on kangaroos which necessitated converting the words and phrases into sentences and creating a cohesive text.

As I watched different children carry out this task with varying levels of know-how, skill and engagement, I once again found myself questioning the genre focus that prevailed in the junior primary writing classroom. The requirements of the task I was observing were so huge and so multifaceted that only a small minority in this group of little ones were learning about writing as they wrote their report. The nature of the writing task with its emphasis on the grammatical, structural and lexical features of the focus genre meant too many demands were placed on these young writers. The task was cognitively difficult: the children had to remember and recall facts about kangaroos, they had to classify the facts according to which heading to write them under, and they had to translate words and phrases into sentences. The task was physically difficult. The children, as they wrote their 'draft' and then 'good copy', were challenged depending on their stage of fine motor development and writing fluency. The task required the young writer to draw on his / her knowledge of sounds, letters, words and sentences. The degree to which this knowledge was automatic varied amongst the children.

What I noticed in these children and what I have noticed in many junior primary children where there has been a strong emphasis on creating texts in structurally correct genres, is a decrease in motivation towards the writing experiences of the classroom.

The emphasis with young beginning writers should certainly be on establishing an understanding of the communicative purpose of writing but without detriment to the development of enthusiasm toward the experience of writing. The writing tasks of the classroom should be such that the challenges they present do not distract the writer from being able to think about sentences, words, sounds and letters as they engage in the process of composing the text.

In order to ensure children are able to develop writing skills at the letter, word and sentence level while still reaching the understanding that writing involves both purpose and audience begin with writing tasks that involve direct child centred experience and that feature the child's immediate world. Writing tasks that stem from highly motivating hands-on experiences in which the children have been directly involved lead to engagement of the writer and his/her ongoing motivation toward classroom writing.

Children's enthusiasm is captured by an experience when they are given the opportunity to be involved in choosing the experience, and when the experience is interactive, requiring the children to do rather than to simply listen and when rich conversation occurs around the experience.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Writing tasks that stem from the child's immediate environment lead to motivation and a cognisance of the communicative nature of writing.

Children can write signs to explain how to look after the fish in the classroom or construct posters to inform other children about keeping the school clean. They can describe their family for a class book or write notes to people in the community to invite them to come and talk to the class. Letter writing in the world of the child can be for a range of purposes such as inquiring about a topic of interest, thanking a guest visitor, sharing experiences with an older buddy or expressing feelings about an event. Children can write to label murals, posters and art work and to explain the items on the science table or to report on their latest science experiment. All of these tasks are communicatively relevant to children's worlds but still allow children opportunity to practise and refine their foundation writing skills at word and sentence level.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In achieving positive outcomes for children in writing, early years teachers need to give due consideration to the interaction between the complexity and relevance of the writing task and the child's level of foundation writing skills and fine motor control. If the writing task is too cognitively demanding or too far removed from the child's immediate world, important aspects of writing development will have to take a back seat as the beginning writer grapples with the whole text requirements.

Janet Fellowes is a lecturer at Edith Cowan University