3 Keys to Teaching Kids to Write

A What’s the best way to teach writing? The experts have many answers — and they often contradict each other. In contrast to the thousands of studies on effective methods for teaching reading and mathematics, there are relatively few rigorous studies on writing instruction. What you consider to be well-written, another one might not.

B Steve Graham, a professor of education at Arizona State University, has made a career out of monitoring research studies on teaching writing, to figure out which methods actually work. Graham and two colleagues, Karen Harris of ASU and Tanya Santangelo of Arcadia University, looked at approximately 250 of the most prominent studies on how to teach writing to students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

C Graham’s review of the research doesn’t resolve the age-old debate of whether students learn writing best naturally — just by doing it — or through explicit writing instruction. But there are effective practices where the research is unequivocal. Many teachers aren’t using them. “We have confirmation of things we know that work, but are not applied in the classroom,” said Graham.

D “Spend more time writing. To teach kids to write well, you need to ask them to write a lot. You’re not going to become a great basketball player unless you play a lot of basketball. Several studies found unexpected bonuses from extra writing time. Write on a computer. The theory is that students feel more free to edit their sentences because it’s so easy to delete, add and move text on a computer. Grammar instruction doesn’t work. Traditional grammar instruction isn’t effective,” explained Graham.

E Three studies did show that teaching kids how to combine two simple sentences into a single complex sentence was beneficial. But traditional grammar — diagramming sentences or teaching grammar rules — didn’t help. Graham suspects that’s because grammar lessons often feel disconnected from actual writing. Classroom practice isn’t totally at odds with the research. Grammar instruction has declined in U.S. classrooms over the last 40 years. But that might be because there isn’t much writing instruction going on at all.

Adjusted to (1)

rigorous – nekompromisní, přísný

unequivocal – jednoznačný, nesporný

at odds – ve při

1) Read the article and match each of the headings to a paragraph.

1 3 professionals studied 250 studies

2 Teachers aren’t using effective approaches

3 Students aren’t given enough writing instruction

4 There are many theories how to teach writing

5 Graham’s theories

2) Read the article and answer the questions.

1 What do experts say about studies on writing instruction?

2 What does Steve Graham do?

3 What methods should be used to teach writing effectively?

4 What did three studies show?

5 What is the reality concerning writing instruction at school like?

3) Explain the following words and phrases.

1 effective methods

2 students learn writing best naturally

3 explicit writing instruction

4 delete, add and move text on a computer

5 diagramming sentences

4) Answer the following questions.

What are writing skills? Which phases are included in writing process? How is writing taught in preschool? Why is learning how to write difficult?

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Source:

(1)

3 Keys to Teaching Kids to Write. U.S. News [online]. 2014 [cit. 2015-09-21]. Available at: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/10/27/3-keys-to-teaching-kids-to-write?page=2