The Writing Process

Toddlers' scribbles are the first form of written communication. Next comes writing letters of the alphabet, then their names. By the end of first grade, children are writing sentences and maybe even paragraphs.

By the second and third grades, children are encouraged to think of themselves as authors. They may still need a lot of help with spelling and punctuation, but they now see writing as both a means of expression and communication. They can set a goal (write a letter to grandma) and use written language to achieve it.

Most teachers teach a five-step writing process to help children learn to write. Understanding the five steps can help you support your child's writing efforts.

Prewrite—getting ready to write by thinking about a topic, making a list, or writing some notes or ideas about the topic.

Write a first draft—composing without worrying about spelling, grammar, or punctuation. The focus here is on getting the ideas in logical order and providing the supporting details.

Revise—rereading the first draft and making notes or changes to improve it. Sometimes it's helpful to have someone else revise the draft too. The result of this third step is a second draft.

Edit—doing a careful review of the second draft to check for spelling, punctuation, grammar, or usage errors.

Publish—making a final copy of the composition and sharing it with others.

Do you have a computer? Then your child could be spared some of the burden of writing and revising. But second- and third-grade teachers will still want to see evidence that your child followed the five steps. Most teachers won't expect reports or other work to be written with a computer at this point.

With the expanding repertoire of skills that most second and third graders have, the doors now open to a wide and wonderful range of writing modes. You may see your child come home with any number of writing assignments. These may be among them:

• Journal entry
• Story or description
• Friendly letter or invitation
• Research report
• Poem
• News story
• TV program review
• Fairy tale or fable

However, anything that motivates your child to write is a good place to start!

You may notice that your child shies away from anything that must be handwritten if he or she is self-conscious about handwriting. This is a good topic to discuss with your child's teacher who may be able to intervene and give some extra help.

 

Taken from www.kz.com

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TEACHING WRITING