6.+Teaching+and+assessing+writing


 * [[image:writing_1.jpg caption="kategracheck.blogspot.com"]]__Teaching approaches to writing__ **

There are four major strategies that teachers can take to teach writing, these strategies are modelled writing, shared writing, guided writing, independent writing and language experience. // Modelled writing // involves the teacher to choose an appropriate topic form their knowledge of the children, regarding prior knowledge and required future knowledge. The teacher will then tape a piece of paper to the board or book stand and then model writing techniques they wish to teach. The teacher will model all the processes of writing and discuss with the children what information they would like to include. (Hill 2006, p.300)

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//Shared and interactive writing// actively involves children in the writing process. The teacher in //shared writing// does the physical writing but the children help come up the ideas. //Interactive writing// both the teacher and student do the physical writing as well as both contributing the ideas for the piece of writing. (Hill 2006, p.300) =====

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//Guided writing// has children writing in pairs, small groups and as individuals. The children write a small section of a whole part of writing that will later be brought together. This type eof writing process can be completed with many genres, such as recounts, narratives and reports plus more. (Hill 2006, p.301) =====

[[image:teacher_kids_writing.jpg align="center" caption="Guided Writing www.learningtoread.ecsd.net"]]
// Independent writing // has the children writing on free choice topics. This includes responses to texts, journals, past experiences as well as stories. Independent writing has the child writing without much support of the teacher. (Hill 2006, p.301) = __Spelling strategies__ = Look-cover-write-check is a method of teaching spelling. This strategy works when the children have their list of spelling words; they look at their word, cover it with their hand or piece of paper, write it and then check to see if it is correct. They should do this a few times, especially if they continue to spell words incorrectly. (Hill 2006, p.275) Word building is used to create understanding of how words are structured. This strategy involves base words their suffixes and prefixes (morphemes). A word list can be produced with the right morphemic word families, for example __ im __ mature, __im__patient and __im__probable and join__ing__, laugh__ing__ and walk__ing__. (Hill 2006, p.275) There are words in the English language that do not have any ‘phonic patterns or morphemic bases’ and these are called mnemonics. Having a trick or giving a clue to how a word is spelt uses mnemonics. Some examples are ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ and affect has an ‘a’ for action. (Hill 2006, p.276) = __Assessment__ = Teachers can use a variety of tools to assess and collect data to analyse and understand the children’s writing progression. In emergent and early writing there are three fundamentals to look for when assessing the very early stages of writing: written language, ideas and text conventions.(Hill 2006, p.289) Analysing children’s spelling mistakes as well as examining their writing can assess spelling. Dictation, hearing and recording sounds is an authentic tool that teachers can use to do this. Teachers need to include words that they wish the children learn to spell. Dictation is when a teacher slowly says one sentence at a time for the child to copy down and then this assessed by granting one point to each correct phoneme-grapheme. (Hill 2006, p.270)