Saturday, December 12, 2024
How Can You Encourage Your Students to Write?
Did you know that writing is great for literacy development?
Writing is a great way for students to enhance their communication skills and deepen their understanding of language. It will encourage them to think critically, express their creativity and articulate their thoughts making it essential to literacy development.
In our blog, we’re sharing some ideas for supporting writing enthusiasm inside and outside the classroom.
Read Regularly
Reading regularly is one of the most effective ways to get into writing. By encouraging your students to immerse themselves in books, they will be exposed to many different writing styles, techniques and vocabulary. This exposure will help them to create their own writing style, as well as give them inspiration for the topic of their work.If they are reading a fictional piece of work, they will also gain knowledge about the pacing of a story, as well as character development, which they can use in their own writing. Over time, reading regularly will help them to build a strong foundation of knowledge and ideas about writing, making it easier to take the plunge and create their own piece of work. At Lexonik, we firmly believe that nobody should be limited because they can’t read, which is why we have a range of literacy programmes designed to effectively improve reading age gains.
One of our regional trainers, Amanda Barber, talks about how Lexonik programmes can help students with both reading and writing, ‘Reading and writing are closely connected. Reading exposes you to various styles, techniques, and new vocabulary, all of which can enhance your own writing. It also strengthens grammar, punctuation, and speaking skills. All of which are necessary to become competent writers. Actively engaging with new words while reading boosts vocabulary acquisition. Additionally, reading introduces you to diverse cultural contexts and writing styles, influencing and shaping your own writing approach. When using Lexonik Advance with students we focus upon strategies not only for decoding unfamiliar words for reading but also how to define these words. We are then able to build on these skills by applying this understanding to other vocabulary, asking our students to ‘think and link’.Increasing their vocabulary not only helps when reading but also expands their repertoire of words when writing.’
Encourage Journalling
Keeping a journal is a great way to ease into writing as a beginner as it creates a low-pressure, personal space for you to explore different writing styles and themes that you wouldn’t normally use in more formal pieces of work. Incorporating journalling into your daily classroom activities will enable your students to develop their writing skills every day. These daily entries will allow them to get more comfortable with their own voice on paper, giving them the confidence to go on to write longer pieces of content.
Kathryn Rawling, one of our regional trainers, shares how journalling has helped her: ‘Journalling for yourself can be a great way to practice writing without the constraints of a set task. Getting in the habit of putting pen to paper can make the act seemless daunting. It's also a great tool for managing anxiety and/or processing difficult thoughts or events. After my dad died, I had a lot of 'what if' and 'if only' thoughts and writing them down really helped. If you struggle to do this with pen and paper, try using a device. For some, the ability to add/delete and move text around makes the task more enjoyable.’
Set Writing Goals in the Classroom
Setting achievable writing goals in the classroom will create structure for your students, and a sense of progress. The goal will push them to finish their goal, while also improving their writing ability by regularly practicing. By setting a goal, you will build a sense of accomplishment, which will boost your students’ confidence and productivity, allowing them to further build their skills.
Create a Dedicated Writing Space
Creating a comfortable space in the classroom for your students to write at, such as a writing corner in your classroom, will help them to get into the right mindset and encourage them to pick up a pen. If you provide them with a dedicated space that is free from distraction, it will make it easier for them to engage fully with their writing. You can use features such as soft lighting and furnishings to make the space as comfortable as possible. Your students will then associate the space you’ve created with writing, making writing more enjoyable.
Find a Purpose For Your Students Writing
A great way to motivate your students to write is by giving them a purpose for their writing.This could be writing a letter to a family member, writing a piece for an internal school publication or applying to a local writing competition. If students have an audience to write to, it will make it easier for them to think about the topic they choose to write about. The sense of purpose will encourage your students to write, as they will be able to work towards an end goal.
Use Writing Prompts
Using a writing prompt can be useful to help your students to get into writing, as it will give them a starting point which they can expand on with their own ideas. It will also help them if they are struggling to choose a topic to base their writing on. For example, you could use the prompt ‘Describe your setting’,to encourage your students to write a short story about the things around them or create a series about various places they’ll be visiting in the coming weeks. Writing prompts are amazing for stimulating imagination, allowing them to explore writing styles they wouldn’t normally use. By using writing prompts consistently, you will turn writing into a habit for your students and they will eventually be able to come up with ideas without being prompted.
Enable Peer Assessment
Encouraging your students to assess each other's work will bring an element of collaboration to writing. This will expose them to a lot of different styles of writing, as well as enabling them to receive feedback about their work, which they will be able to use to improve in the future. To implement this, you could set up a weekly session for students to review each other’s work and give feedback. This will make them more likely to participate in writing, as they will want to show their best work to their peers.
According to the Department for Education, writing is a lifelong skill, allowing children to share thoughts, ideas and feelings. Writing builds on children’s understanding of language and how print works. The key to developing literacy skills lies in the practice of writing regularly. Whether you choose to write daily, share your work with others, or simply jot down your thoughts into a journal, every word contributes to your growth as a writer and thinker.
Encouraging children to write is essential, as it will help to develop their overall literacy skills. Writing will deepen their understanding of vocabulary and help them to understand effective communication. At Lexonik, our literacy programmes reinforce this message by providing students with knowledge about reading, which will improve their writing ability, leading to the development of literacy skills.
So, make sure to encourage your students to be enthusiastic about writing! If you’d like to know more about us and how we support learners with life-long literacy skills, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
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