Strategies for Improving Reading, Writing and Creative Expression in Children (Year 1 – 4)

I developed the following for the mum of one of my daughter's (school-educated) friends. Although incredibly bright, they were repeatedly being told that he wasn't "working to potential" or "achieving" what he could. However, they were not being given any strategies to improve the situation. Here are my thoughts:

General Principles

1. Start Right. This means being well-exercised, well-fed, having used the toilet, not being too tired, and having “full love tanks”. Children are developing rapidly, and pushing their abilities on a daily basis. It is not surprising that if they are to do their best, they must start right.
2. When in doubt, split it up. For every subject, you will find that there are ways of splitting up the required elements of a subject to make sub-categories. If you can tease apart the separate skills, develop them in isolation, and gradually put them back together again, you will achieve far more than by attempting to force your way through with the subject as a whole. It is far easier to catch the small errors in an individual sub-category, than to notice these same errors when working at a larger scale. For example, a child who is having problems with their penmanship may fail to produce the required three sentences for a writing exercise given in Year 1 for science within the allotted time period. It may be presumed that the child does not have a grasp of the subject matter, that they have used their time inefficiently, or any number of reasons. Because success at the basic skill (penmanship) has been tied to the overall success in the subject (science), any evaluation of science skills will therefore be tainted by the child’s challenges with their penmanship. And the same could be said for a child struggling with reading, basic numeracy, etc.
3. True success breeds confidence, confidence the willingness to take risks, and the willingness to risk will enable further success. Without this cycle, we all loose our focus and willingness to tackle new things. This can be especially damaging, though, for a young child. Therefore, if by isolating skills you can reward successes on an individual basis, and provide assistance for skills that the child is struggling with, you can enable the child to walk – to run – to dance – and to soar!
4. Always look forward to the next baby step. It is very easy to get bogged down in the problem a child appears to be having. Sometimes – not always, but sometimes – the real problem is that the child is bored! J If you can bring in the next step, or put a challenge to it, you can often excite the child to work towards the next challenge – and succeed! Equally, this mentality helps the teacher/parent to keep in their mind where they are heading, and more importantly why the skill in question is (or perhaps is not?) important in the grand scheme of things.

Improving Reading

1. Choose interesting books. More than anything else, I think that the choice of books is the number one point in determining whether a child will be interested enough and self-motivated enough to overcome the challenges of learning to read fluently and extensively later in life. A good choice is a book that:
1. Pushes towards the next step (and sometimes skips a boring step!)
2. Is interesting to the child in question
3. Encourages thought (fluff is fine for fun, but I am hesitant to use fluff for ‘real’ reading, except on rare occasions)
4. That is non-fiction or fiction, and includes a wide range of subject matter
5. That may be co-read, or read with assistance from a parent or tutor
2. Read daily.
3. Reward every page, but only when the book is done. We keep a running reading log, which includes the date we read the book, the title, the name of the author, the number of pages for each book, and a running tally of total number of pages. When we first began this process in Reception, we rewarded every 100 pages read with a sticker. When the child read 1000 pages, they had the right to have a book purchased for them from the store within certain parameters – there was a maximum price set for the book, and the book had to meet the requirements of an “interesting book” (as defined above). This system worked shockingly well, and I soon had to extend the number of pages required for a new book to be purchased! Even now, in Year 2, we continue to keep a reading log. We no longer give out separate prizes for number of pages read – the tally itself has become a testament to the achievement and now serves as an effective record of success.
4. Read to excite, captivate and interest. Sometimes to get a child started on an “interesting book” their imagination needs to be captivated by the characters, the prose, the adventure or the subject matter. Often reading the first few chapters and leaving the book on a cliff-hanger can be enough to encourage the child to pick it up and read the rest for themselves. Regardless, instilling a love of books needs to be considered a separate sub-category of improving reading to having the mechanical knowledge of how to read. And the best way to instil a love of reading is to read to your child from a wide selection of interesting books – classics, fairy tales, children’s poetry, ancient oral histories (such as the Gilgamesh Epic) and from non-fiction books above your child’s reading level on subjects that will interest them.
5. Separate reading and comprehension skills. As with a love of books, comprehension skills need to be separated from mechanical reading skills. To begin with, a child needs to learn to comprehend a story that is read to them at a separate time and place from the opportunity to decode words. As they progress, the two activities can slowly be integrated, but need not be rushed. Furthermore, comprehension skills need to be separated from writing skills (which almost always lag behind reading and comprehension skills). Dictation exercises, as described below, can be an excellent solution to this problem.
6. Include poetry in your reading program. Reading regular selections of poetry together and even memorising a poem once a week or once a month together as a family or class will help develop skills across communication disciplines. It will develop reading skills (rhythm, phonetic awareness, enunciation, pronunciation, word recognition, etc.), writing skills (by building available vocabulary and expanding literary experiences) and communication and memorisation skills, both critical to fluency in English and success in school. Furthermore, confidence can be built in reading through this activity, even for a child who cannot read the poem – because they WILL be able to “read” it once they have it memorised. Finally, it can be used as an excellent “copywork exercise” for developing writing skills (see below.)

Improving Writing

1. Write daily. Even if it is just a sentence, just like reading, it should be practiced regularly. Consider changing what is being written to be as appropriate as possible to the child’s interests – perhaps copying out a recipe the child wants to try from a library book, writing a letter to Grandma, keeping a journal, or leaving a note for daddy when he’s due home late one night.
2. Copy other people’s work. Once a child has the basics of letter formation, it is very tedious to go over individual letters repetitively. However, as further practice is vitally important – both for letter formation, and for developing vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure and fluency – copying out well-written poetry or prose is a far more interesting use of time, and achieves the purpose well. This is especially true with cursive or joined up writing. The student should be strongly encouraged to use their best handwriting for this exercise.
3. Separate spelling from writing. Make sure the child knows when their first priority is to focus on handwriting by taking the task of spelling consciously out of writing through copywork. Provide spellings when focusing on creative expression. Conversely, spend specific time focused on spelling words, building slowly towards the goal of fluency.
4. Practice dictation. Dictation is the practice of one person speaking for someone else to write down. It can be used both to develop spelling, to determine comprehension (in reading and in other subjects) and for creative writing.
1. For Spelling. It is one thing to spell words in a list that has been studied all week. It is another to have a sentence read out to you and need to remember spellings as you write. Therefore, practice combining spelling into writing through the practice of dictation can aid in developing this skill. Start with small sentences (The dog and the cat sat on a mat.) and eventually work up to paragraphs from classic prose. Always try to make these sentences as interesting as possible based on the child’s abilities.
2. For Comprehension and Creative Writing. The ideas for stories (not to mention answers to questions for other subjects) can be readily forgotten in the process of trying to remember the mechanics of writing. If, however, the child tells you the story (etc.) and you write it down for them, it may prove that their stories are more interesting and their answers more thorough than previously encountered. TWO POINTS TO KEEP IN MIND:

i. It is vital that you use your best handwriting – in whatever font you are teaching – for this exercise, as the child needs excellence demonstrated at all times.

ii. Once written out, the child can come back and copy out their words in their own writing. This enables the child to succeed separately at two challenging tasks, without the manipulation of one task interfering with the success of the other.

5. Spur creativity at every opportunity. Read creative works of fiction and poetry, tell stories as you drive, make up translations for animals sounds and behaviour, play with puppets, and add new vocabulary regularly, encouraging good pronunciation and explaining the meaning of the words clearly and carefully.
6. Develop fine motor skills through other activities. Whether it be small-piece building work, art, music, cookery, manipulation of tools, all of these skills will encourage hand-eye coordination, necessary for the mechanics of writing, but in a far more interesting and less stressful way, while expanding the mind and the wealth of experiences to draw on to facilitate reading, writing and creativity.