Tag: teaching

Teaching Writing: Generating Intrigue

Following on from my recent article about how to teach young people to read, I decided to pass on my top tips regarding teaching writing. For me, as a teacher and writer, these two things are very important. Being able to write is a powerful skill which can easily become unappealing if it isn’t taught well.

You may wish to check out my article about encouraging reading too.

Reading Is Not A Punishment

Writing is something that not only opens doors, but provides an outlet for worries, dreams and memories.

Creating A Buzz

As with anything, motivation is a big part of the writing process. I was definitely losing interest in writing fiction when I got to Year 10 at school and then a wonderful teacher called Mrs S joined the school and reinvigorated my fascination with composition.

Mrs S was so enthusiastic and knowledgable. She made us feel like her creative team, shared her process of planning creative pieces, acted out scenes from plays excitedly and generally stirred up a buzz in all of us to write fiction.

So if you are a parent wanting to support your child to learn to write or a tutor trying to spark enthusiasm, you need to start by showing that you genuinely care about the written word. The students will then be fascinated by what makes you happy and want a piece of that particular pie.

Some Possibilities

– Be visible enjoying writing. Whether writing a shopping list, composing a speech or simply jotting down a joke, make sure you are clearly seen doing it. Children will be intrigued by a parent or tutor visibly enjoying writing something down.

– Guide the writing process. Any task is more fun when done collaboratively. So why not write something together. Unpicking the process as you go along, draw them into the magic of writing something.

Writing with a partner is fun. It involves sharing ideas, overcoming challenges together and ending up proud as punch of a piece of work that is the result of a team effort.

– One of the hardest parts of teaching writing is getting started. Don’t be afraid to get the learner off to a good start by feeding them possible routes into a text. So what if you have to provide them with the prompt or initiate the first paragraph? Often a beginning is all that is required to kickstart the unfurling of a work of fiction.

– Make sure that spelling is no object. Writing can be by hand or on a screen. Either way, dictionaries, word banks or spell checks on devices can be utilised to support spellings and speed things along. You as the tutor can encourage them to create a draft without worrying too much about spellings. These things can be fixed later on.

– Demonstrate how you come up with sentences. Make transparent the thought process and let them know that it is OK to make mistakes.

Every author starts with a first draft. They may have completely changed the whole thing by the time they publish a book. Editing is part and parcel of writing successfully.

And Finally…

For me, writing enables me to spout my ideas and thoughts on anything and everything. Nothing beats the feeling of creating a short story or writing a meaningful letter or note.

Hopefully some of the suggestions for teaching writing that I mentioned above will help you to think about the way you encourage writing. The most important thing is generating a love of writing by showing how much passion you have for composition.

For another recent article, have a look at my Wizard of Oz theatre review. Perhaps follow my blog for similar future content.

Reading Is Not A Punishment

As a teacher and tutor for many years I came across a variety of students who had different attitudes to reading. I also came across parents with very differing approaches to getting their kids to read. One thing I realised early on was how powerful and important being able to enjoy books can be.

Don’t Push It

In my experience, if you force anyone to do anything, they will come to resent it. I was forced to play football at school, during lunchtimes and when I got home (as my neighbours always wanted to play it) and so I started to resent the sport.

Being forced to be a goalkeeper all the time made me dislike anything to do with football.

So being made to read and treating it like a punishment is generally off-putting. Also, having to suffer for not reading is a massive turn-off.

You have to teach reading using a tiptoe method. Step by step you shine a light on the reading experience and make it feel comfortable and fun.

Some Suggestions:

– Read yourself regularly and where your child can see you absorbed in that activity. They will be fascinated by what is holding your attention and hopefully making you smile.

– Share a book with them. Learning to read starts with phonics but the love of reading comes from a shared experience. If you read to your child every evening, with expression and interaction, your audience will start to become interested.

– Don’t force a ‘type’ or genre of books onto them. Find some topics they like. Yes they may appreciate Roald Dahl but they may also crave stories about skiing or travelling or even prefer factual books about insects. Whatever they are drawn to, go with it.

– Use the pictures to get them involved in the narrative.

“Can you spot a picture of someone running away from something? What do you think made them run?”

– Work with poems and rhymes early on so the student then begins to know the patterns and jump in with the endings of each line.

– Most of all, make learning to read fun. This will make a lasting impression on the young reader and may foster a love of books which will stay with them as they grow up.

Final Thoughts

I remember my Mum taking the time each night to read me a story and I was totally absorbed. I became curious about what was so exciting about books and soon became a keen reader.

If you don’t use books as punishments and try not to limit the types of books that a child reads then a love of books should develop naturally. When a child doesn’t want to read something, never force them. Instead, give them some space and ensure you are seen enjoying a book. Later on, try a different book with them or find a fun way to make the reading session more like a game.

For another of my posts about education, check out 5 Challenges Of Teaching.

Five Challenges Of Teaching

This is the first time I have written a blog post about my profession but I felt it was appropriate to discuss the issue, especially during current strikes and lots of News posts about education in Britain. The challenges of teaching are real and have grown considerably in the last ten years.

1) Not Enough Hours In The Day

I know a lot of people dismiss teachers as lazy due to the regular holidays and large summer vacation. What people don’t see is the number of hours that professionals put in every week. Teachers teach from 8:45 to 15:15 or thereabouts BUT that is by no means the end of it.

Many articles suggest that teachers spend more time doing admin than actually teaching. An Edweek article speaks of teachers working a median of 54 hours a week. Under half of this time is actually taken up delivering whole class teaching.

A lot of my friends earn a lot more in office based jobs but never take work home or do any admin at the weekend. Teachers have to!

2) Homework Matters!

I hear people talk about homework as if it is irrelevant. It may feel like a drag getting your child to do a school task at home but it is really important. Half of a pupil’s learning takes place out of school.

Life skills and days out contribute to education too. Good conversations with families and friends make a difference to this learning. Homework helps to discipline young people to take control of their workload and enables them to solidify spelling knowledge and mathematical methods.

So, YES teachers spend a lot of time chasing missed homework. It does matter.

3) Parents Make A Massive Difference

It is strikingly obvious that parents can make a huge difference when it comes to education. Supportive parents can be incredibly valuable. They also make a teacher’s life easier.

When parents put effort in to spend time with their children reading, pupils are certainly more keen to interact with books. Those who don’t bother are easy to spot. Kids who never have a book or remember to bring it or who don’t want to engage with books often come from homes where books are not valued.

Similarly, in houses where kids get to do productive things and get involved with informal education, they tend to engage better with the education system. You don’t have to do expensive days out at The Yorvik Museum or visiting the French trenches. Just having sensible conversations about nature, making a bird feeder, talking about what is going on in the world, encouraging questioning… These things help.

4) People Pleasing

The inspection system is flawed. As we know, recently there has been a lot of talk about the lack of value of Ofsted inspections. Giving a school a one word summary is very simplistic and can be very harsh.

Currently Ofsted grades include:

Outstanding

Good

Requires Improvement

Inadequate

We spend a lot of time going through mock inspections and doing extra admin which an inspector might like to see. Teachers are under incredible pressure to perform and it can be A LOT. One visit every three to five years can knock a school down or provide it with a stamp of glory.

Essentially teaching is people pleasing. For me though, the people who truly matter are the pupils. Not inspectors!

5) Who are we doing the admin for?

Another thing that takes up a lot of time in education is the dreaded thing we call marking. Teachers spend lots of time writing in books, ticking, underlining and correcting work. It is a prominent part of the job but can become very tiring.

Fortunately, it is possible to hot mark during a lesson as you provide feedback to individual pupils. This has been a new addition which was gratefully received. But there is a lot of other admin surrounding marking and assessment.

Secondary school teachers know better than anyone how taxing marking tests and exams can be. Any test we set has to be processed in some way. At primary school, every answer in a test is scored and typed into a computer to be churned out on various Excel spreadsheets. For whom I will never know.

SEND

Special Educational Needs are becoming a growing concern. In my twenty years as an educator, the proportion of young people per class with special needs has grown whilst the number of teaching assistants has dwindled. I love that we include everyone in education but the amount of admin surrounding a child with an educational statement is huge and the amount of training in this area is limited.

In A Nutshell

I have always strongly believed that education should be free and widely available. Growing up in a small village in the Fens and then going to secondary school in a market town, I adored my education. Those with privilege seem to get better opportunities at school but I totally disagree. They may get to mix with more rich kids but passionate teachers are widespread.

My friends and colleagues are wonderful teachers and love imparting knowledge, supporting pupils to develop as good citizens and inspiring young learners to strive for their dreams. If parents are supportive then children can learn so much. There are a few obstacles though, such as behaviour and social history.

And Finally…

Hopefully my five challenges facing teachers get you to think about some issues that affect educators. When teachers strike it is because of issues such as these and the incredible work-life imbalance that leads to burnout and early retirement or brilliant teachers switching careers.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog article. For another informative post, have a look at my Why Greener Spaces Matter article which links to The Climate Change Collective. Please also follow my blog for more articles about lifestyle and reviews of books, movies and TV programmes.