Effective Communicator As a Writer-Ann

Being able to communicate effectively is a demanding task for primary aged students. Both written, speaking ,and listening skills are critical skills that prove school has been successful. Growing up in the first decade of the twenty first century, children have had to prove their communication skills on high stakes testing, as well as class projects and school community. These communication skills that are learned by students that are effective at school also prepares them for their future goals and successes.
Students need instruction that is explicit and then need encouragement to solve. (Gibson, 2008; Englert, Dunmore, 2002) Elements and strategies should be visible and accessible. (Vaugh, Gersten, Chard, 2000) Even a limited writer will learn strategic behaviors and expand knowledge. (Boocock, McNaughton, Parr, 1998) Therefore students should be taught in flexible guided writing groups based on needs. Some children will need more guidance than others in small groups. However using guided instruction does help the students, it does not replace the writing workshop framework. (Graves, 1983) Rather, after the whole class lesson is completed limited writers gain additional support in the guided writing group having a shared experience of introductions, engaging conversations, explicit strategy directions. Teachers give clear directions, examples of steps and strategies to support effective writing with tools such as cue cards, diagrams, graphic organizers, and clear examples. (Englert, Mariage, Dunsmore, 2006) When students are ready to write teachers should give “feed forward”. The teacher “leans in” on what the student is writing and gives assistance. Students receive immediate teacher attention, giving help when the student struggles. Once writing is complete students have a daily opportunity to share daily writing with a class audience. Assessment practices are suggested to measure student progress: authentic anecdotal and analytical assessments. (Fearn, Farman, 2001) More research is still needed on grouping practices (Flood, Lapp, 2000) and improving the effectiveness of writing through drafts over time.
In their book Reading and Writing With Understanding: Comprehension in Fourth and Fifth Grades, Sally Hampton and Lauren Resnick (2009) suggests an array of purposes and processes that help students gain effective writing skill. It is recommended that the editing should be done after revisions so writing is not restricted. (Cawlkins, 1994; Graves, 2003) By the end of Third Grade students should be familiar and able to identify several genres. If the student has been in a strong writing program from Kindergarten through Third Grade they should have age appropriate skills of effect writing. Effective function strategies that should be in place by the end of Third Grade are: introductions, closings, organization, storyline, compare, contrast, details, and sentence structure. Getting students to have clarity in effective writing has a “direct ration to the number of things we can keep out if it that shouldn’t be there” (Zinner, 1985). English Language Learners (ELL) that were placed in peer response groups did not improve as writers without teacher direct instruction. (Gomez, Parker, Lara-Alecio & Gomez, 1996) ELL students placed in peer groups with English speaking students wrote more, the quality of the writing of writing did not improve (Prater, Bermudez, 1993) Next steps to improve the peer group model are to have specific teacher instruction on rubric components, plus more modeling of group responses and procedures.
Another important factor in the teaching of writing is motivation. One strategy is “Write Talks” (Wilson, 2008) to build student attention to writing by seeking adults admired, and asking people to come in and share the kind of writing that they do for work to students and explain why the writing is important or the purpose of the work. Students in class develop questions for the adults. The writing is also used as an example for the reason to write. The students have the opportunity to gather the advice of their guest writers and observe styles and compare genre. Using this strategy is motivating for students and students learn real life communication skills.
Gambrell (2004), takes a look at 3 decades of reading conferencing in Shifts in the Conversion: Teacher Led, Peer-Led, and Computer Mediated Discussion. Reasoning that while teacher -led discussions are effective when the teacher gives feedback. (Mercer, 1993) Peer –led discussions engage students in problem solving and high level thinking which engages the reading discussion. (Almasi, 1996) Students are enabled to make similar attempts of critical thinking and also more engaged as readers given the opportunity to share thinking in peer-led discussions. The teacher is facilitator and the students work together, improving reading comprehension. Also computer mediated discussion is a promising way to engage students in print based dialogue, outside of the traditional classroom setting (Wade, Fausko 2004)
Rickards and Hawes (2006), point out in their article Teaching Tips: Connecting Reading and Writing Through Author’s Craft, the importance in focusing on one strategy in reading and writing workshop. There are an array of benefits to this. Exemplar text are present as students read like writers. The end result is that students can take the learning of strategy/ concept as the basis for conferring peer to peer. Teachers were able to make literacy connections in daily mini lessons, and students were able to practice and evaluate their effectiveness in their own writing, using these exemplar text from reading workshop.
This can be the focus of my research…this alone….
Targeting key teaching strategies that support Third Graders to become effective communicators as writers.
“If I want to chart student progress, change….follow student work everyday” page 59 from The Art of Classroom Inquiry