LESSON 3.

TEACHING WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

SKILLS (READING AND WRITING)

3.1. READING
The term ‘interactive’ has been used to describe the second language reading
process. The term can be interpreted in two ways. First, it describes a dynamic
relationship with a text as the reader ‘struggles’ to make sense of it. In trying to create
meaning from the text, you are undoubtedly involved in an active process, a process
which Goodman (1967) called a ‘psycholinguistic guessing game’. From this
perspective, reading can be seen as a kind of dialogue between the reader and the text,
or even between the reader and the author (Widdowson, 1979).
It is likely that you use at least six types of knowledge to help you make sense of
the text:

a) Syntactic knowledge
b) Morphological knowledge
c) General world knowledge
d) Socio-cultural knowledge
e) Topic knowledge
f) Genre knowledge

The second interpretation of the term ‘interaction’ refers to the interplay among
various kinds of knowledge that a reader employs in moving through a text. Two of
these, syntactic and morphological knowledge, are to do with the language itself. As we
have seen, these kinds of knowledge help a reader to decode the language of a text and
can together be called linguistic, or systemic, knowledge. At the same time, general
world knowledge, socio-cultural, topic, and genre knowledge, together often referred to
as schematic knowledge, enable a reader to work with the language of a text in order to
interpret its meaning.
While it’s true that researchers continue to investigate the precise ways in which
schematic and systemic knowledge interact in processing a text, second language
pedagogy now generally works on the assumption that second language readers will
need help with both, and that classroom methodology needs to pay attention to both.
Schematic knowledge has been defined by Cook (1989) as “mental
representations of typical situations… used in discourse processing to predict the
contents of the particular situation which the discourse describes”. This means that there
are certain words or phrases in the text or in the materials surrounding the text which
will activate prior knowledge of some kind in the mind of the reader. Therefore, the
reading methodology needs to pay attention to activating schematic knowledge before
reading.

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 Language knowledge, on its part, enables readers to work on the text. Good
readers recognize, and decode quickly and accurately, words, grammatical structures,
and other linguistic features, and are unaware of the process as they engage in this. In
other words, a fluent reader has a good knowledge of language structure and can
recognize a wide range of vocabulary automatically. In fact, vocabulary is another
major component of reading ability with which language learners will experience
difficulty, but the degree of difficulty will vary with the demands of the text, the prior
knowledge of the reader, the degree of automaticity a learner has achieved in general
word recognition, any specialist lexical knowledge a student might have, and the
learner’s first language.
Pugh (1978) and Lunzer and Gardner (1979) described five styles of reading and
their terminology for these has been taken into ELT methodology:

- Receptive reading is undertaken, for example, when a reader wants to enjoy a

short story, follow a line of argument in a newspaper editorial, or understand the
main stages in a textbook description of a manufacturing process.
- Reflective reading involves episodes of reading the text and then pausing to
reflect and backtrack.
- Skim reading is used to get a global impression of the content of a text.
- Scanning involves searching rapidly through a text to find a specific point of
information.
- Intensive reading involves looking carefully at a text, as a student of literature
would look at a poem to appreciate the choice of words, or as a solicitor would
study the precise wording of a legal document.

The point of making these distinctions is that different purposes for reading
determine different strategies in approaching texts and also different rates of reading.
Rivers and Temperley (1978) make the point that ‘reading activities, from the
beginning, should have some purpose and we should concentrate on the normal
purposes of reading’. They list the following purposes: to get information; to respond to
curiosity about a topic; to follow instructions to perform a task; for pleasure,
amusement, and personal enjoyment; to keep in touch with friends and colleagues; to
know what is happening in the world; and to find out when and where things are.
Critical reading views reading as a social process (Kress, 1985). From this
perspective, texts are constructed in certain ways by writers in order to shape the
perceptions of readers towards acceptance of underlying ideology of the text. For
example, a political writer using the pronoun ‘we’ attempts to create a bond with the
reader by assuming a shared view of the topic under discussion. Therefore, a consistent
procedure for critical reading might reassure those teachers who want to encourage
learners to challenge a writer’s assumptions but do not want to prescribe the
alternatives. However, it is extremely difficult to envisage such a procedure. Even in
selecting texts for a critical approach, the teacher can hardly avoid implying value
judgments which go some way towards promoting their own views.

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 A key issue emerging form research studies has been that of defining exactly
what is meant by the term ‘extensive reading’. There is a lack of consensus among
writers on the subject. Some use the term confusingly to describe skimming and
scanning activities on longer texts read during the class time. Others relate it to quantity
of material. The aim of extensive reading is usefully described by Hafiz and Tudor
(1989: 5):

“… to ‘flood’ learners with large quantities of L2 input with few or

possibly no specific tasks to perform on this material. The pedagogical
value attributed to extensive reading is based on the assumption that
exposing learners to large quantities of meaningful and interesting L2
material will, in the long run, produce a beneficial effect on the learner’s
command of the L2”.

There are two major vehicles available for extensive reading. One if the use of
class readers where the teacher chooses a book and each student has a copy and
everybody reads at the same time. However, many teachers prefer the class library
method, arguing that a box of thirty different readers for a class of thirty students
provides so much more potential than a class set of the same reader.
Another two important things we must take into consideration are the goals for
the reading classroom as well as the criteria we must follow when selecting reading
texts. As far as the goals for the reading skill are concerned, we should include some of
the following ones:

- to be able to read a range of texts in English

- to adapt reading style according to range of purposes and apply different
strategies
- to build a knowledge of language, which will facilitate development of greater
reading ability
- to build schematic knowledge in order to interpret texts meaningfully
- to develop awareness of the structure of written texts in English ands to be able
to make use of
- to take critical stance to the context of the texts

The teacher’s responsibilities in helping learners achieve these goals will be to

motivate reading by selecting or creating appropriate texts, to design useful reading
tasks, to set up effective classroom procedures, to encourage critical reading, and to
create a supportive environment for practising reading. Each learner will have different
strengths to build on and different weaknesses to overcome. Therefore there can be no
single, set, rigid methodology for reading. The teacher will need to focus on different
goals at different times and to use a range of materials and tasks.

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 In relation to the criteria we should use when selecting reading texts, it’s worthy
to mention the key point relating to principles for the reading lesson that R. Williams
(1986, p.42) makes: “in the absence of interesting texts, very little is possible”. Besides
this, apart from the fact that a text should be interesting in order to motivate the
students, we should also pay attention to its variety: of topic, of length of text, of
theoretical organization and of reading purpose.

3.1.1. TEACHING AND LEARNING TECHNIQUES AND ACTIVITIES (SONGS,

RHYMES, GAMES AND STORY-TELLING) FOR DEVELOPING THE READING
SKILL

a) Reading at the initial stages

It is important not to place too many reading demands on younger learners who
are still learning to read in their L1. Therefore, the most important objectives are to
develop good levels of literacy in L1 and good oral skills in the L2.
There is a general agreement that the most effective way of teaching reading
means using a balanced approach with several methods. In order to consolidate
childrenʼs phonemic, phonological and morphological awareness, we must pay attention
to phonics, highlighting the recognition of individual sounds and sound blends or
combinations. Most teachers use a balance of activities that focus on sounds, letters and
words but also activities that promote word recognition associated with meaning, for
example Look and Say and Language Experience methods. Look and say is based on
encouraging sight recognition of the most common words, such as the, he, she, is, are,
so that part of reading becomes automatic. Language Experience is used with young
children and tries to make print meaningful by encouraging personal events to become
part of a simple text. If something interesting happens in the school or classroom the
teacher can scribe a sentence, ensure the pupils understand it and then show the pupils
how the written word corresponds to the spoken word.
Once children are introduced to the written word in English they will quickly
discover that English spelling does not always help them in their reading. Decorating
the classroom with functional print such as alphabet friezes, flashcards, posters… will
help students link the concept with the English written word.
It is important to introduce reading after the pupils have some basic knowledge
of the spoken language so that it quickly becomes meaning-based and not just simply
decoding. Nevertheless, reading in English in the early stages will combine
‘meaningful’ reading in sentences supplemented by independent reading at the letter
and the word level. Generally the teacher should support pupil’s association of letters,
words and pictures through songs, visual aids, games, and so on. At first pupils will be
introduced to pictures only, then pictures and words together as flashcards. Once the
pupils are more confident they will be able to cope without so much visual support, but
it will still remain an important support for many years. Ensure that the child
experiences reading as purposeful and enjoyable rather than simply a meaningless,
repetitive activity. Pupils enjoy listening to simple dialogues and stories which are well
illustrated and have an interesting story line. In the very early stages pupils can simply
listen as the plot unfolds and the illustrations are shared with them.

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b) Reading at the later stages
As pupils become more confident in reading their own language, they use
reading to learn. After an initial introduction to English learning, pupils will be expected
to cope with the independent reading required of a course-book. Pupils are often
introduced to and learn new vocabulary or grammar through reading short texts in the
form of dialogues, descriptions, instructions or short stories, often lavishly illustrated to
support the pupils’ understanding. They may be learning how to learn through their
reading.
When children are listening to spoken messages they are trying to understand
and interpret information in a similar way to when they are trying to understand and
interpret written messages. This means they will often use similar strategies. Research
has shown that actively encouraging learners to use comprehension strategies helps
them understand both spoken and written passages more effectively (Wallace, 1992). If
learners know, for example, that they are listening to or reading something to get a
general picture, they will listen or read in a slightly different way than if they are
expected to listen or read in detail for specific parts of a message. A learning-centred
approach to reading uses activities in a three-stage model: pre-, while- and post-reading.
Activities using visuals such as charts provide an intermediate stage in reading
development and also provide a framework to support children’s listening and speaking
skills. Reading practice may also be derived from listening work or may lead to writing.
In this way, reading becomes integrated with other language skills.
Traditionally, pupils are asked to complete gap-filling activities or
comprehension questions after reading a text. Since all teachers know how these work
we shall focus here on other activities which provide variety in the classroom and cater
for different learning styles and intelligences. Reading to learn activities which are
meaning-focused are often referred to as DARTS (directed activities related to texts).
These focus on the processes and outcomes of reading. DARTS include reconstruction
activities and analysis activities.
Among the first group, we can find out activities such as the text has been
modified by the teacher in some way so that the pupils can match parts of sentences or
‘speech bubbles’ to characters, filling gaps in sentences or texts, sequence parts of a
sentence or text, predict the next parts of a sentence or text after reading a section at a
time, complete tables, flow charts and other key visuals or graphic organizers, and
complete pictures or diagrams with colours, labels or missing parts, among others. The
analysis activities, on their part, are activities in which pupils hunt for specific
information to organize it in some way. Although these activities are more difficult, at
primary level the pupils can underline specific parts of a text, perhaps in different
colours, to show different things. They may underline any shape words in blue and any
size words in red, label parts of a text using labels provided by the teacher and create
their own questions from a text for other pupils to answer.
It is also helpful to reinforce the idea that reading is used for a variety of
purposes. Language awareness activities can be encouraged by asking pupils to notice
similarities and differences between alphabets or by counting how often letters occur in
words. Older pupils can be introduced to the notion of genre, or text type, where pupils
are introduced to the names of different types of text.

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 Now, we are going to study some reading activities which range from the simple
to the more complex and explain whether the activities focus on learning to read or
reading to learn. The learning to read activities include developing phonemic skills or
sight recognition of key vocabulary, while those based on reading to learn are often
integrated with other skills (speaking, listening or writing). The reading to learn
activities emphasize reading for meaning and may also develop concepts, study skills,
thinking skills, such as problem-solving and a greater awareness of texts and discourse.
Some activities can be carried out at simple and more difficult levels. This range of
activities provides useful alternatives for checking reading comprehension and provides
variety, thus helping to maintain the pupils’ interest in reading.
Some of the activities described below can be used with the whole class, while
others can be done individually, in pairs or in groups. When using group work any
supplementary reading activities should be clearly labelled and/or colour-coded to show
their level of difficulty so that the children can organize themselves and work
independently.

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3.2. WRITING
The process view of writing sees it as thinking, as discovery. Writing is the
result of employing strategies to manage the composing process, which is one of
gradually developing a text. It involves a number of activities: setting goals, generating
ideas, organizing information, selecting appropriate language, making a draft, reading
and reviewing it, then revising and editing it. It is a complex process which is neither
easy nor spontaneous for many second language writers. As Shaughnessy puts it: ʽOne
of the most important facts about the composing process that seems to get hidden from
students is that the process that creates precision is itself messyʼ (1977: 222).
A major concern of researchers into second language writing has been to
identify these mental operations, and a number of research methods have been used to
do this: interviews, observation, audio and video recording, and making protocols as
writers ʽthink aloudʼ during composing.
There are three activities characterizing the writing process: planning, revising
and producing ʽreader-basedʼ prose:

a) Planning
First, good writers concentrate on the overall meaning and organization of a text,
and engage in planning activities. This will involve thinking about the purpose of the
writing. The particular purpose implies an organization for the writing and a style
appropriate for the readers. The amount of planning will vary, therefore, in relation to
the type of writing task, from relatively spontaneous writing based on a quick mental
plan, to something carefully worked out beforehand in notes.

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 However, it will also differ according to the preferred style of the individual
writer, and considerable variation has been observed here. If, indeed, episodic planning
allows for an interplay between writing and thinking, a methodology which encourages
students to plan in detail before writing and to keep to that plan, is naïve and possibly
counter-productive. A more flexible approach is, then, required.

b) Revising
Typically, as we have seen, a good writer proceeds through alternating phases of
writing and reflection. During reflection, writers may re-read me sentences on the page
or look back at their original plan and think about how to express the next set of ideas.
Studies by Perl (1979) and Sommers (1980) showed that less experienced writers were
constantly concerned with grammar and correctness and this distracted them from
thinking about clarity of ideas and organization. They pointed out that the extent and
nature of revision depends not only on the writer's skill but also on the purpose of the
writing, the genre, the level of formality required, and the degree of familiarity with the
readers, the subject, or the type of writing task.

c) Producing ʽreader-basedʼ prose

A third characteristic of successful writers is that they are aware of their readers
and seek to produce 'reader-based' prose (Flower and Hayes, 1980). In other words, they
think about what the reader needs to know, how to make information clear and
accessible, and about the appropriate style: for example, formal, friendly, or persuasive.
Writing is social and interactive in nature as the writer conducts a ʽdialogueʼ with a
assumed reader, anticipating the responses and selecting appropriate information, ideas,
and expressions to influence those responses. Good writers are sensitive to the audience
of their writing.
What teachers should take into account about what makes a successful writer are
whether we can reach strategies for planning, revising, and editing, and whether we can
help students develop a sense of audience. A process approach tries to provide useful
support for student writers. The nature of the support will depend on the kind of
learners. The primary aim of the process approach, therefore, is to help students to gain
greater control over the cognitive strategies involved in composing. This suggests a
number of principles for the teacher to incorporate into the teaching of writing.
One of the hardest tasks in writing is getting started. In academic writing, a first
step in pedagogy could be to encourage students to work in pairs and arrive at an
understanding of the task by questioning and clarifying the meaning of key expressions
and selecting the information needed to fulfill the task. White and Arndt (1991) make a
useful distinction between guided techniques in which prompts such as questions are
used, and unguided techniques in which students generate ideas by themselves.
However, we need to keep in mind the solitary nature of most writing and move
students gradually towards the independent position of a writer engaged in a real writing
task.

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 If teaching methodology is to support planning, then classroom activities need to
guide students in finding their own effective planning processes. Given that we know
successful writers plan their writing in very different ways, this needs great care. Many
teachers now take me view that the best help they can give is to provide students with
ideas for planning in the early stages and to let them take up those which they find
individually useful and attractive. At the same time, it is essential to communicate the
flexible nature of plans, which ideally should change and be adjusted as the writing
progresses and generates alternative ideas and structures.
A possible technique is the brainstorming. This generates ideas through
individual reflection and is developed as the mind makes associations. It is just to give
ideas related to the topic itself. Another planning strategy could be that of the mind
maps, particularly useful for descriptions. This is a strategy for note-making before
writing, that is to say, scribbling down ideas about the topic and developing those ideas
as the mind makes associations.
Writing materials now seek ways of helping students to organize their ideas:
through planning in groups, guided note-making, strategic questions by the teacher,
organizing points in a hierarchy of importance for presentation, highlighting essential
information, sequencing given information, and sorting and matching ideas. These
techniques give initial support for what will eventually be a process undertaken
individually.
Helping student writers to develop a sense of audience is another important task.
With less mature writers, who may not have developed a sense of audience in writing in
their first language, we can create audiences and build up awareness of the reader. The
principle involved in these letter exchanges is that of task dependency as the success of
the exchange depends on the clarity of the letters to their readers: this reflects the
interaction of reading and writing in real life. As students work on writing tasks it is
important that they ask themselves who they are writing for and keep that audience in
mind as they write.
Many teachers now hold the view that the traditional procedure of taking work
in, marking it, and returning it to students when the writing experience is no longer
fresh in their minds, has serious disadvantages. This is especially the case if little work
is done in class on revising as it gives students the impression that the teacher is
primarily responsible for improving the quality of their written work. A variety of
procedures are now used to support revision, and these need to be evaluated against
what we know of how good writers go about the process. There are two important
procedures:

a) Conferencing: as the class writes, the teacher can talk with individual students about
work in progress. Through careful questioning, the teacher can support a student writer
in getting ideas together, organizing them, and finding appropriate language. It is a
useful technique during the earlier stages of composition when writers are still thinking
about content and organization.

b) Reformulation: it is a useful procedure when students have produced a first draft and
are moving on to look at more local possibilities for improvement. It has the particular
advantage that it provides students with opportunities to notice any differences between
the target model and their own production and thus to acquire language forms.

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 The essential element in the techniques described above is that they all provide
feedback to the writer. It will be the role of the teacher to provide the final feedback on
the completed piece of work but, even here, there are choices to be made. A number of
different marking strategies are available, for example: replacing the student's writing
with a more accurate or appropriate form; indicating a problem by underlining and
inviting the student to self-correct, and locating an error and giving it a symbol to
denote the type of error. It is also possible to indicate in the margin that there is an error
of a particular kind somewhere on that line and ask students to locate and correct it.

The revision strategies described above have the same aim of encouraging
students to see writing as something that can be improved, and they train learners in
looking for areas for improvement. It is worth every teacher's while to ensure chat a
variety of techniques are used to encourage this essential activity in the writing process.
In recent years, many teachers of writing to second and foreign language
students have had to make a realistic appraisal of the word processor as an aid to
composition. The advantages of word processors are clear: learners who have
previously struggled with handwriting in English are greatly assisted; the word
processor enables sustained periods of composition, and the speed of processing can
assist the generation of ideas and their rapid noting in any order as they come into the
mind. Another advantage is that rapid drafting is possible, leaving error-correction until
later, and this can be trained through techniques such as oral dictation (Hyland, 1993). If
learners process something dictated quickly by their teacher, they do not have time to
stop and worry about minor errors, of spelling and punctuation, until they have finished.
Recently, work done on the analysis of written texts has provided us with a
greater understanding of how they are structured. Two types of analysis in particular
have yielded useful information for teachers. The first is genre analysis. Swales (1990:
58) defines genre in the following way:

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 “A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of
which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are
recognised by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and
thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the
schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice
of content and style”.

The second type of analysis to yield insights is contrastive analysis of rhetoric.

Different cultures have different expectations of how to organize writing, and that
knowledge of conventions in the first language will influence the organization of texts
in second language writing. In summary, insights from the analysis of written texts have
an essential role in writing classes. They can help us build an understanding of how
texts can be effectively organized. This, in turn, gives teachers and learners criteria for
effectiveness in writing. Both of these applications can be integrated with a process
approach.
We can identify the range of written products that any particular group of
students needs, and the way in which one form differs from another, For example, in
English the conventions and style of formal and informal letters differ, and both may
differ in format and style from letters written in the students' first language. It can be
useful for teachers and students together to survey the students' needs for writing in
English and to select writing from among relevant categories.
Here a typology of writing is shown:

Personal writing Public writing Creative writing

Diaries Letters of: Poems
Journals – enquiry Stories
Shopping lists – complaint Rhymes
Reminders for oneself – request Drama
Packing lists Form filling Songs
Addresses Applications Autobiography
Recipes (for memberships)

Social writing Study writing Institutional writing

Letters Making notes when reading Agendas Posters
Invitations Taking notes from lectures Minutes Instructions
Notes: Making a card index Memoranda Speeches
– of condolence Summaries Reports Applications
– of thanks Sypnoses Reviews Curriculum vitae
– of congratulations Reviews Contracts Specifications
Cablegrams Reports of: Business letters Note-making
Telephone messages – experiments Public notices (doctors and other
Instructions: – workshops advertisements professionals)
– to friends – visits
– to family Essays
Bibliographies

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 Part of the drafting and revising process involves choosing the language to be
used and linking ideas in appropriate ways. The choice of language will depend on how
a writer anticipates the reactions of the supposed reader. Classroom writing is a fluency
activity in the sense that learners can use all the existing language resources they have
so far acquired to write a whole, contextualized text. However, teachers can support
students in their growing awareness of how to achieve accuracy in a text: of such things
as how the parts of a text are linked through cohesive devices, how sentence structure
can vary to develop meaning, and the role that punctuation plays.

3.2.1. TEACHING AND LEARNING TECHNIQUES AND ACTIVITIES (SONGS,

RHYMES, GAMES AND STORY-TELLING) FOR DEVELOPING THE WRITING
SKILL

The kinds of activities pupils do tend to fall into two sets in the same way that
they do for reading: learning to write, where pupils are involved mostly in tightly
guided copying which focus on ʽsurfaceʼ features, such as handwriting, spelling,
punctuation and using the correct words and grammar; and writing to learn, where there
may be less tightly controlled writing activities, moving to much freer or even creative
writing where there are higher cognitive demands and a greater focus on meaning and
personal expression as well as form.

a) Writing at the initial stages

In the early stages of learning to write in an L2 young pupils may still be
consolidating their concept of print. Copying at this level provides opportunities to
practise handwriting, to learn and consolidate their understanding of new vocabulary,
develop an awareness of and confidence in English spelling and practise a range of
simple sentence patterns they have learned to use in speaking. An important principle at
all levels is that children should not be asked to write something that they cannot say in
English. Pupils in the second year may move on to practise writing sentences and very
simple, short texts. Writing practice also helps gradually to widen and consolidate the
range of vocabulary, grammatical structures and sentence patterns they can produce. It
is helpful to provide plenty of practice in the meaning and spelling of basic words so
their use is familiar and gradually becomes more automatic.
English spelling is illogical and difficult and is not easy for young children to
learn. According to Palmer (1991), there are four main ways in which children learn the
spelling of words: visual, auditory, linguistic and kinaesthetic. With visual style,
learners respond to the shapes of words and the patterns of letter strings within them and
have a feeling whether something ʽlooks rightʼ. With auditory style it is better for
learners to sound the word out as they can recognize the relationship between sounds
and letters or groups of letters. With kinaesthetic style spelling is a graphic-motor skill
and the writer lets the hand remember the kind of movements and shapes made when
producing words. The linguistic style is one some children might draw on as they grow
older and develop skills in seeing relationships between words based on grammar,
meaning, and so on.

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 In order to create a supportive writing classroom, we can follow these
guidelines:

• Reinforce the connection between writing and speaking English and reading and
writing in English. Use a range of activities such as rhymes and stories, big
books to show your enjoyment of reading and writing, and instil enthusiasm for
reading and writing in the pupils.
• Try to develop an awareness of environmental print.
• Make sure your own classroom has many examples of English writing,
functional print.
• Develop the concept of English letters with letter cards, magnetic or plasticine
letters and alphabet games.
• Have special 'letter days' where children bring in things which begin in English
with a particular letter. Label and display them.
• Count the words in a line of print or clap for each word spoken to develop a
concept of word.
• Reinforce the concept of words and letters with alphabet songs, jingles and
games.
• Help pupils build lists of high frequency words from their reading and writing
using personal picture dictionaries.

b) Writing at the later stages

After two years of English, many pupils will have mastered some of the more
basic skills in writing and should be encouraged to produce writing for a specific
context and audience which goes beyond the practice stage. Guided copying at sentence
level and above can be supported through the use of support frameworks and graphic
organizers such as pictures, written models, tickcharts, flow charts, grids, and so on.
More creative writing activities, which encourage the children to compose their
own sentences or texts, provide useful and motivating practice in planning, organizing
ideas and understanding the conventions of discourse. As children grow in confidence
some might like to become more involved in choosing text types for themselves.
Even with older children, writing tasks should always be prepared for by specific
activities, including the technique of modelling, which provides for the rehearsal of key
vocabulary and structures. If writing is always strictly controlled, with children usually
completing rather impersonal and mechanical exercises such a gap-filling, they will tend
to lose interest in writing.
Guided activities at sentence level and above for older pupils may include
putting words in the correct order, matching sentence halves and copying, gap-filling
using visuals or words, writing captions for pictures, writing speech bubbles or
dialogues, creating sentences from a tickchart, and sequencing sentences. Such activities
provide practice in handwriting, spelling, identifying lexical sets, learning or reinforcing
meaning, grammar patterns, organization of ideas and integrating writing with other
skills.

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 It is useful to bear in mind that writing to communicate is also an important
aspect of the writing process, thus it becomes increasingly important for teachers to
create opportunities for older children to do this.
When supporting writing tasks with older children it is important to keep the
same basic principles in terms of preparing pupils through talk. The teacher should also
be aware of the language demands and thinking demands. The language demands can be
broken down into key language functions, such as identifying, describing and
comparing people, places and things, writing instructions, describing a simple process
or cause and effect, sequencing events or classifying.
The way in which teachers respond to or mark writing will depend on the kind of
writing focus the writing activity practises and the age and language level of the pupils.
Where the focus is on surface features such as handwriting or spelling or on language
forms, such as new vocabulary and sentence patterns, and the activity is based on very
tightly controlled copying, you are more likely to insist upon accuracy. The main point
is to develop a sense of what each child is capable of, so that you build up a picture of
when a child has tried very hard or has been rather sloppy. You can then recognize both
accuracy and effort.

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