Re: teaching 4th grade writing

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Reading Teachers Chatboard

teaching 4th grade writing

by upcoming interview

May 6, 2014

I am currently a first year teacher teaching social studies and coaching 3 sports. I want to temporarily get out of coaching afterschool sports so that I may have more time to possibly pursue a master's degree. I am currently teaching middle school studies but I have an upcoming interview in another district to teach 4th grade writing. Any recommendations or tips for reading to study up on things so that I wont sound clueless in my interview? (although I have never taught this content area). Thanks in advance!

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Sara On 5/06/14, upcoming interview wrote: > I am currently a first year teacher teaching social studies > and coaching 3 sports. I want to temporarily get out of > coaching afterschool sports so that I may have more time to > possibly pursue a master's degree. I am currently teaching > middle school studies but I have an upcoming intervi...See MoreOn 5/06/14, upcoming interview wrote: > I am currently a first year teacher teaching social studies > and coaching 3 sports. I want to temporarily get out of > coaching afterschool sports so that I may have more time to > possibly pursue a master's degree. I am currently teaching > middle school studies but I have an upcoming interview in > another district to teach 4th grade writing. Any > recommendations or tips for reading to study up on things so > that I wont sound clueless in my interview? (although I have > never taught this content area). Thanks in advance!

If you can get hold of a book called Why Johnny Can't Write. It's short but even shorter might be to read a chapter or two in a book called The Myth of the Lazy Child which is written by a pediatrician who goes through the issues that can make reading and writing more difficult for some children.

Kids who read poorly write poorly. They go hand in hand and so many schools don't seem to get that. Writing is the flip side of reading. There are also kids who do read well but write poorly - a true dysgraphia -as if they've had a stroke.

If you can find an article "Writing: The Great Juggling Act - that's an enlightening article. Lots of writing teachers think teaching writing us just about giving out assignments and having them write. Wrong.

Reading is taking the 'code' that is our written language and 'decoding' it. (You may have had this in a theory class in college) writing is 'encoding' - But the task that ends in a written sentence begins with a thought in the brain. Some kids are not verbal and their problem with writing begins with the fact that they're not very verbal. Then once they have a thought to write, they have to think of what letters represent the words of their thought, put those letters in a certain order to make words, put the words in a certain order to make sense and make some letters uppercase, others lowercase because that has a meaning all its own and then put symbolic marks at the end of the sentence - period, question marks each if which has its own meaning. And then do it all again with the next sentence.

Meanwhile they need certain fine motor skills which not all of them have to enable them to hold a pencil effectively...

Writing is a hugely complicated task - it's why many early cultures did not have a written language - and lately in education we've come to place this rather do or die significance on it. We've ratcheted up the pressure on kids - Kindergarten kids are now expected to be writing paragraphs and they do 'research papers' in 1st grade...

I've gone on too long - sorry. Clearly it's a topic on which I have strong feelings. I've taught remedial writing for years and if kids could be given some breathing room, encouraged without being stressed or scared, half of them would be able to learn to write in their regular classrooms and not need to come to me. I welcome having them but I see so often the fallout from the modern do or die emphasis on writing and the flawed modern methods of teaching writing. Here I go... one of which is 'writing prompts'- it's believed by some that if you can find the right writing prompt that children will be magically unlocked by that prompt and the writing will just flow. Before I climb back up on the soapbox, get someone's I-phone, download the free app Dragon Dictation and speak into it - it's a miracle. Kids need to be helped to use it - and I could help you with that - but for kids with significant fine motor issues or truly dysgraphic kids - that free app can really help. Sorry for this lengthy response - clearly I like to write....

May 13, 2014

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