Educating Leaders - No Conveyor Belt Education Here!
July 24, 2009 - Teaching Writing Skills: Part II
This summer I’ve been posting reviews of our writing products as well as some articles about writing. This is an article that I wrote last summer that I thought you might find helpful.
In my last article I described a unique approach to teaching writing. It follows the guidelines set out by Andrew Pudewa in IEW's Teaching Writing: Structure & Style. This program spends most of it's time teaching students writing skills such as "how to write" instead of brainstorming "what to write about".
Using that model, let me share free writing lessons online that you can use with your own children this week (or the first week of school). If your older children struggle with writing, this is a great place to start. Begin by choosing a story they enjoy. This is one way of using predictable books to teach writing.
DAY 1 In order to help your children with "what" to write, you should copy a simple, one-page story, perhaps Aesop's Fables. Read the story aloud with your child. After reading the story, write an outline/structure so you can do a key word outline with your child. The structure should look something like this.
I.
1.
2.
3.
4.
You will notice that there are no letters, only numbers, on this structure. There is an excellent reason for this -- children find a numbered outline easier to follow than one that includes letters. Make sure that you have a number for each sentence in the story.
Go back to the story, and re-read the first sentence. Ask your child to choose three key words from the sentence. These words will help him to put the story in his own words, which happens later in this exercise. Underline or circle these words, and then write them beside the "I". Make sure you write them in order.
From there, read the second sentence and choose another three key words. Write those words beside 1. If your child only has a word or two, that's fine - just make sure that there are no more than three words. Your child must decide for himself which words to choose. We are not trying to force your child to remember every little detail, just the highlights so he can re-write the sentences later.
Here’s a video review of one of our writing products, “ History Based Writing Lessons.
After you have your outline completed, put away the original source. Have your child use the outline and tell back to you the paragraph. Children have a much easier time verbalizing what they have read rather than writing it down. You just finished half of the writing lesson.
With older students, be sure to have them re-tell the paragraph to you. This may seem childish to you, but it is imperative to help with older kids' thought pattern as he writes tomorrow.
Join us for the part three, which includes more free writing lessons online. Using the outline you created today, you will take the next step - teaching your children to write a story in their own words.
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Copyright Kerry Beck, 2009
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