Developing Writing Skills in Primary Education: Methods, Strategies, and Curriculum

Posted on Sep 24, 2024 in Teaching & Education

UNIT 19: DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING IN PRIMARY EDUCATION. LEARNING METHODS AND STRATEGIES. COMPOSITION OF DIFFERENT WRITTEN TEXTS. USE OF ICT. EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTION STRATEGIES.

1. INTRODUCTION:

Reading and writing are still, even today, very specific school-based learning activities. In instrumental learning, we find a significant number of children failing.

Yetta M. Goodman explains that children, from a very young age, are constantly interacting with the meaning of written texts, including product labels, toys, street signs, and signs in restaurants and shops. In this environment, rich in printed materials, children begin to understand the particular roles that reading and writing have in their social group. The school’s role is to develop this understanding from the moment the child enters pre-primary education.

Hence, the set of Decrees (RRDD) establishes that the role of Primary Education (EP) will be to extend this linguistic and communicative competence so that children are able to interact in the various social fields in which they will be immersed.

Based on this approach, this unit will attempt to clarify the process of writing development in EP. This requires determining the educational intervention over it and introducing technical review and evaluation.

2. DEVELOPING WRITING SKILLS IN EP:

2.1. Writing:

To refer to the act of writing, we use different terms such as writing, writing (as in the statement of the theme), or written composition, which is the name used in the RRDD.

Ajuariaguerra (1980) recognizes that “writing is not only a way to indelibly record our ideas and memories, but in our society, it is a kind of transmission, a means of communication between us and our neighbors.”

Although we consider orality as the pinnacle of human communication, actually strengthened by the media, writing remains one of the defining signs of our civilization, present in much of human activity. Far from disappearing, other forms of writing have emerged, much more diversified and in line with the needs of our time, so that its acquisition is still considered essential for full access to the world of culture (e.g., SMS, e-mail, social networks).

Therefore, from school, we give importance to this phenomenon, devoting large time slots to it. But reality shows us that there is not always a correlation between time spent and the quality of results. Teachers see how many students do not achieve an acceptable command of writing by the end of this stage because writing is a complex process, which involves a large number of skills: linguistic, cultural, and textual.

2.2. Development of Written Expression in PD:

Knowing how writing evolves at this stage allows us to evaluate children’s achievements and helps us, as teachers, to plan our intervention, adjusting to the moment that each of our students is at.

To understand how the writing process develops at the PD stage, it is necessary to give an overview of the phases (or hypotheses), following Teberosky and Ferreiro, that children go through and that serve as a reference to locate any written production.

  1. The child distinguishes between drawing and writing, realizing the difference between the symbolic system that is conventional writing and drawing.
  2. The production of graphic symbols used by children is undifferentiated concerning the intention that the child has at the time of writing.
  3. The child seeks graphic marks when writing that have to be different depending on what they want to represent. They want to find discrete graphic marks for different written communicative intentions.
  4. Back in the syllabic stage, children become aware that the letters in the names of objects and people are not arbitrary. During this period, they select letters from their repertoire based on the number of syllables the word they want to write has.
  5. Then (syllabic-alphabetic phase) they may identify some of the letters that form a syllable, usually the vowel, and write a letter for each syllable, but not arbitrarily but conventionally; the letter is actually in the word.
  6. The child then passes to the ALPHABETIC phase, where they end up identifying and writing all the different letters that make up the syllables of words but still make typos.
  7. The process continues, improving written productions, both in their formal dimension, that is, conventional writing: spelling, syntax, vocabulary, as well as the expressive and communicative.

During the first two cycles of the stage, the child will use basic spelling rules, and by the end of the PD stage, they will have automated spelling rules and will resolve frequently occurring spelling questions using the appropriate support (dictionaries, notes, etc.).

The acquisition of conventional punctuation is late in the evolution of writing in children. This is mainly because they are signs with various functions. It begins in the first cycle, the upper and lower case and the period of a sentence and the comma in enumeration, as well as exclamation and question marks.

During the second and third cycles of EP, they will be used to eat with other functions such as opening and closing parts of a larger statement, opposition or coordination, as well as other signs, such as semicolons, quotation marks, or parentheses.

Throughout the stage, they will master syntactic structures and expand their vocabulary.

2.3. Writing Within the PE Curriculum:

Writing is a process that is not acquired by the child overnight but is a complex and lengthy process.

Considering that the child needs to know the code and access written language as a set of different text genres, there are two lines of different teaching approaches:

  1. The line that believes that knowing the code is a precondition for children to access knowledge of written language. It corresponds to what has traditionally been done in most of our schools and focuses attention on teaching the code first and then moving on to teaching writing narratives, descriptions, letters, etc.
  2. The line that believes that knowledge of written language, on the one hand, and the code, on the other, are two different kinds of knowledge with their own developments.

The model of language teaching proposed by the LOE would fall within the latter approach, as it stands in the RRDD, in the teaching and learning of language in the framework of communicative competence, which means that the curriculum focuses on learning discourse skills.

Teaching writing means, on the one hand, considering the written text as a unit that takes on situational meaning in a particular context and involves organizing the curriculum of written language around the different textual typologies, which will be addressed in section four of our subject.

It is also determined that the use in writing, learning to read and composition, has progressively increasing levels of complexity in the planning and structuring of the text and further diversification in the contexts.

Therefore, in relation to writing, students at the end of each period must be able to:

FIRST CYCLE: Write and rewrite various texts related to childhood experiences in compliance with clear models, using planning and revision of texts, taking care of spelling and simpler grammatical rules and more formal aspects.

SECOND CYCLE: Write, rewrite, and summarize several significant texts in everyday situations and school in an orderly and appropriate manner, planning and using the revised text, taking care of spelling and grammar rules and formal aspects, both in print and digital formats.

THIRD CYCLE: Narrate, explain, describe, summarize, and present opinions and information in texts related to everyday situations and school in an orderly and appropriate manner, relating statements to each other, using the usual planning procedures and review of texts and the rules of grammar and spelling, and paying attention to formal aspects both in print and digital formats.

3. METHODS AND LEARNING STRATEGIES

3.1 Cognitive Processes Involved in Writing

In order to establish, in the next section, the strategies used by the child to carry out the writing process, it is necessary to know the thinking activities carried out, which we will briefly describe below.

Of all the models that have been developed, we will select that of Flower and Hayes (1981), which is the most widely publicized. It distinguishes three cognitive processes involved in writing:

  1. Planning Process: During this process, the child faces three problems:
    • What do I say?
    • How can I tell it?
    • When is it appropriate to introduce what I decided to tell?
  2. The translation process is guided by writing plans and aims to transform the relevant information stored in memory into a particular language. This involves mastering the conventions of written language (e.g., the formation of letters, sentence construction).
  3. The review involves the activation of two threads, proofreading and editing, with the aim of improving the quality of the text. In rereading, the child reviews and evaluates the content produced.

These three processes are not organized linearly or independently because, at any time during writing, the child can perform planning, and the same will happen with the review. Therefore, the composition process requires not only the implementation of these operations but also of strategies from which the child can determine the goal ahead.

3.2. Learning Strategies:

In addition to knowing and teaching strategies to manage them, we must keep in mind, when guiding the educational response, the different cognitive styles that each student puts into practice to achieve their goal, in this case, the composition of a written text.

  • Development strategies: involve making connections between new and familiar information. The child must select and organize a set of information from the body of knowledge stored in their memory. They can paraphrase, summarize, and describe how the new information relates to existing knowledge.
  • Organizational strategies: They gather information to make it easier to handle. They involve imposing structure on content, dividing it into parts, and identifying relationships and hierarchies. Within this category would also be selection strategies, whose function is to select the most important information.
  • Control strategies of understanding: These strategies are related to metacognition. They involve remaining aware of what you are trying to achieve, keeping track of the strategies used and their success, and adapting behavior accordingly. They are characterized by a high level of awareness and voluntary control. Among the metacognitive strategies are:
    • Planning Strategies: These are those by which children direct and control their behavior (e.g., break down the task into steps, set a timetable for implementation, provide the necessary time, select the strategy to follow).
    • Control, direction, and supervision strategies: They are used during the execution of the task. They indicate the capacity that the student has to follow the plan set out and test its effectiveness (e.g., ask questions, follow the plan, adjust it over time, change and seek alternative strategies).
    • Evaluation strategies: They are responsible for verifying the learning process. They are carried out during and at the end. These are activities such as: reviewing the steps, assessing whether or not the proposed objectives have been achieved, assessing the quality of the final product, deciding when to complete the process started, etc.
  • Emotional support strategies: These strategies are used to improve the effectiveness of the entire writing process, improving the conditions under which it occurs. They include: establishing and maintaining motivation, focusing attention, staying focused, managing anxiety, etc.)

4. COMPOSITION OF DIFFERENT WRITTEN TEXTS IN EP:

As discussed in the introduction and in section 2 of the topic, the goal of teaching writing is not only for the child to acquire the writing system but from the beginning to use it to make different written compositions with a clear communicative intent.

When proposing the composition of written texts to our students, we must start from the premise that what they write is functional, in context, with a clear intention, so that the activities offered will display situations close to everyday life, related to the needs of children and their closest interests.

We will motivate the child through meaningful activities, taking into account their previously acquired knowledge and ability to use the many learning strategies necessary to successfully solve this task.

In our attempt to start from this premise and the content that is set for each of the cycles of this stage, we propose the following text types:

4.2.a. Typesetting Typical of Everyday Social Situations:

  • Correspondence: letters and postcards: Correspondence has many forms, with special features that distinguish them, such as the source of emission, the intention of their content, the processing of shipment, etc. In this section, we will develop family or friendly letters.

They have a structure consisting of: Place and date, greeting, text (colloquial, precise, spontaneous), closing, and signature.

We begin, in infant education, by familiarizing children with letters and postcards, explaining what they are, what they are for, etc. Initially, they will write short, simple letters related to their interests, for example, the letter to the Three Wise Men, and we will gradually increase the degree of difficulty and the intent thereof.

  • Notes, Notices: Students are already familiar in the first cycle of EP with the notice or notification, which the teacher gives to their parents and vice versa. Notes or notices have a simple structure and are easy to learn: greeting, information, farewell, and, if applicable, a seal and signature.

Activities will begin to compose notes through restructuring, that is, children write notes as if they were teachers or parents. They start by using models and proposed content for the text and end up doing it independently.

4.2.b. Composition of Information and Opinion Texts in Social Media

  • News: Part of the informative genre derived from the narrative. It has generation rules that have manifested themselves in terms of the text as the “inverted pyramid”: the most important information is in the headline and introduction, then the information decreases in importance, and finally, the least important.

Journalistic writing standards affect both the vocabulary and the sentences (short, with subject, verb and object, and active affirmative).

The activities can be posed by proposing the idea of imitating a professional writing an essay, rewriting it as if they were the journalist.

In the first cycle, they will write simple news about upcoming events related to their experience, as well as the headlines that are closest to them and captions.

  • Letters to the Editor: With this, the producer acquires a social role, participating in a public space and accepting the discourse constraints that this role requires.

At the time of writing, we will act as an active subject who speaks on their behalf or as a taxpayer who is affected by something.

4.2.c. Composition of Texts Related to the School to Collect, Organize, and Communicate Information:

  • Definitions/Descriptions: These are texts that define or describe a concept. They are characterized by realism and provide specific information with precise terminology and simple sentence structure.

Definitions require a textual structure that ensures syntactic organization based on cohesive blocks and organized by connectors such as “and,” “why,” “but,” etc.

One way to introduce children to definitions is through the class dictionary, which is an excellent activity from the early grades.

This practice consists of a file that contains concepts that present difficulty. When a word comes up, a tab is opened, and the children draw an object, write its name, and write its definition.

  • Explanation: These are texts that aim to explain, question reality, expose facts, and investigate evidence.

Some features are descriptive and explanatory, frequent collections of the above, and so on. Typical connectors are “for,” “since,” “however,” etc., and relative clauses that explain a concept or complement.

The lexicon plays an important role because students have to find the right words for every situation.

Activities related to the production of texts involve several tasks prior to the development of these, such as: information gathering, selecting, and organizing information.

Teacher intervention is associated with the educational level; the lower the level, the greater the teacher’s guidance.

  • Abstracts: It consists of synthesizing or reducing to short, precise terms the essentials of the subject being worked on. It should reflect only the most important ideas.

It is a product that will be obtained after carrying out a series of activities such as: rapid text reading, more careful reading, underlining, and then the composition of the summary with meaningful sentences joined by what we have underlined.

5. USE OF ICT:

5.1. ICT

The impact and transformation that ICT is currently having on society and culture opens up new concepts in the educational environment, requiring a new change in teaching methods to make use of all the possibilities that its application allows, as listed below:

  • Interest, motivation: Students are highly motivated to use ICT resources, and motivation is one of the engines of learning because it encourages activity and thought.
  • Interaction: Students are continuously active in interacting with the computer. They maintain a high degree of involvement in the work.
  • Development of initiative: Consistent involvement fosters the development of their initiative. It promotes a flattering job autonomy.
  • Learning from mistakes: The immediate feedback to user responses and actions allows students to learn from their mistakes as they occur.
  • Increased communication between teachers and students: The communication channels provided by the internet facilitate contact between students and teachers.
  • Cooperative Learning: The tools provided by ICT facilitate group work and the cultivation of social activities, exchange of ideas, and cooperation.
  • High degree of interdisciplinarity: Due to its versatility and storage capacity, it allows different types of treatment and the realization of a wide and varied amount of information.
  • Audiovisual and digital literacy: Provide students with contact with ICT as a learning tool and to process information.
  • Skill development and selection of information: The large volume of information available on the Internet requires the implementation of techniques that help to locate the necessary information and its assessment.
  • Improving the skills of expression and creativity: The tools provided by ICT facilitate the development of writing skills.

5.2. Use of ICT in Writing:

In relation to the area of language and, in particular, to writing, we will treat ICT as a resource in terms of:

  • Selection and processing of information: The child in EP will start by searching, selecting, recording, and processing or analyzing information using various techniques and strategies to access it according to the source from which it is taken.

Having information does not automatically mean knowing. Transforming information into knowledge requires reasoning skills to organize, relate, analyze, synthesize, and make inferences and deductions from varying degrees of complexity, in short, to understand and integrate it into previous schemes of knowledge.

Information processing means being autonomous, responsible, critical, and thoughtful in selecting, processing, and using information and its sources.

  • Word Processor: Thanks to word processing programs, the computer becomes an advantageous typewriter. It allows the student to type the text while watching the result on the monitor screen. If mistakes are made, you can rewind, delete, and correct. The possibilities of the word processor in the composition of written texts are innumerable, but in turn, it involves a series of knowledge about it. If it were to be used in the classroom as a tool and as a means of writing, students would have to learn how to use the software.

6. Educational Intervention Strategies:

To properly plan our IE related to writing, there are many aspects that we must consider, such as the area of intervention (cycle, year), the students (cognitive styles, prerequisite skills, interests), the resources that we have, etc.

At the same time, we must establish strategies to facilitate learning and that, in general, are defined as follows:

  • Offering a variety of writing situations and topics that are relevant to their interests.
  • Providing real communication situations. Ensure that what is taught in the classroom is what students will actually use in real contexts.
  • Use a variety of authentic texts; each text has certain demands and different problems that students must be aware of in order to use them properly when writing.
  • Using model compositions as a framework and starting point.
  • Foster exchange and collaboration among students.
  • Provide the support, stimulation, and motivation that each student requires in each case.
  • Focus the evaluation on the different properties of the text and even on the composition process. Cassany, Luna, and Sanz (1994) understand evaluation as a technique to fix only what the student can learn. Give practical advice, correct the student when they have recently written something, allow time for the student to read and discuss the corrections with the teacher, teach self-correction, correct drafts, etc.
  • It is good to compare their first writing assignments with past ones and see the changes.
  • Direct evaluation of both the written product and the composition process.

7. CONCLUSION:

As a result, writing has come to establish itself as a manifestation of linguistic characteristics that require IE to be shaped in models consistent with the requirements demanded by this activity.

Throughout the unit, we have made it clear that writing is much more than the production of written messages; to reach the space of the social use of written composition is to use functional communication in different situations.

To achieve these objectives, EI focuses on student activity with the teacher’s guidance (appropriate to each situation and each sentence) and the use of the required learning strategies.

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  • CASSANY, LUNA Y SANZ (1994) Teaching language. Barcelona. Graó.
  • Batkin: (1986)
  • AJUARIAGUERRA: (1980)
  • Yetta M. GOODMAN:
  • FLOWER AND HAYES: (1981)