TEACHING+TO+WRITE

There are various approaches to teaching writing and some are more suitable to various situations, for example interactive writing is most effective when taught in small groups. In modelled reading the teacher acts as the scribe and aims to introduce and support newly introduced ideas if the writing process. It involves the teacher writing on a large piece of paper while thinking out loud about the purpose and process of writing the text. The learning focus should be based on the general need of the classroom and should address common issues the students are facing. Modelled reading allows the teacher opportunity to convey the relationship between spoken and written language and also engage their students. Shared reading is another whole group activity. It involves the teacher as the scribe while incorporating ideas from students to form a piece of text. Issues such as meaning, topics, ideas and choice of words are discussed. This approach to writing gives students the chance to think and compose without being worried about the complexity of writing out the text. It addresses all the planning, composing, recording and revising aspects of writing. Interactive writing involves the teacher working with small groups to compose a text composed by the group. Teachers share the responsibility of recording as students are given the opportunity to come up and write more challenging words they may not know in order to problem solve as a group. This approach is useful in encouraging problem solving as well as planning and reviewing an individuals own text. Guided writing involves the teacher guiding a small group of children in creating their own individual written texts. The teacher prompts students into extending their thinking and helps them establish what it is they want to write about and what they want the outcome to be. Guided writing is useful for addressing a range of things such as sentence structure, spelling, hearing sounds in words, grammar etc. (Cloonan, A et al, 2000, pp 29- 35)
 * TEACHING WRITING **
 * WHOLE CLASS APPROACHES TO WRITING **
 * MODELLED WRITING **
 * SHARED WRITING **
 * SMALL GROUP APPROACHES TO WRITING **
 * INTERACTIVE WRITING **
 * GUIDED WRITING **