Writing - there's more to it than meets the eye

 In my little series about literacy, I thought I would meander off a little into the topic of writing.   

Writing and reading are inextricably linked, while there are obvious differences, there are many pieces of the puzzle that are the same.  Sadly however, writing seems to be completely misunderstood and it is not yet widely acknowledged in our education system, that writing is one of the most complex cognitive tasks that we ask children to do.

I have posted about writing before, a few years ago now, and reading back, there was much I did understand, but a lot I realise I just didn't know.  Since then, my deep dive into the Science of Literacy and more accurately in my mind, the Science of Learning or Evidenced Based Teaching, my approach to writing has changed.   

Often writing is seen as just one part of the daily timetable, the teacher models, the children write and that is it.  Little thought is given to the foundations that need to be in place for children to be successful in this process.  Or if thought is given, an attempt is made to teach it all at once, through one modelling session.  I know this was me, I scheduled writing, I wrote, the children helped me, then they wrote.  Often they just drew a picture and scribbled some letters and this was ok.  I celebrated the effort, I cherished the storytelling but if I did give thought to what else I should have been fostering, it was shoved in with everything else. 

 I was also really good at 'motivating' their writing, we used drama, imagination...all the bells and whistles.  

Many children made excellent progress within this approach, they picked up what I was putting down and quickly became writers.  Others appeared to remain stalled, mystified by the process of writing, often unable to come up with their own ideas, yet I persisted with my approach, thinking if we just kept plugging away at it, they would get it.  I wrote with children every day and hoped that the frequency of writing throughout the week would mean progress.  As I write this, it reminds me of the current government's soundbite "an hour of writing a day."  

What we did find, school wide, is that there were a group of children, that never really became writers.  This happened year after year.   

They improved slowly with time, but were often termed 'reluctant', writing was just not their thing, their spelling was atrocious and their writing was messy.  They disliked writing as much as I dislike soggy brussel sprouts.  Still we blamed the fact that this was just the norm, some children would just never take to writing and that was ok.   Funnily enough they were predominantly boys and it was around year 4 we really noticed them significantly lagging behind their female counterparts.   Our summation was that boys really just didn't like writing and therefore we needed to come up with engaging and authentic contexts to write about.   So instead of looking at what actually makes up the writing process, we tried to make it more exciting.  Again, this really worked well for those children who were already successful writers and those who were our 'reluctant' writers really loved the 'excitement' of the motivation, but there was little impact on the quality of their writing.  They were happier to write, but this didn't make them any better at it.

I look back now, appalled at my mindset, but forgive myself for not knowing better.  I am a firm believer in the fact that if we know better, we should do better, so over the last seven years I have committed myself to knowing better and to looking at my practice when children are not achieving as I would expect.

What I know 'better' now, is that writing is incredibly complex.  While many would say, we get better at writing, by writing and therefore children should be writing everyday in order to improve, I say, that if we are just doing the same thing, over and over and expecting different results, we are deluded.  Of course repeated practice is crucial, but what is it that we are repeatedly practicing?

So in my 'knowing better' journey, I have discovered that writing has so many facets, many that can be linked to reading, many that stand alone and many that actually benefit reading.

What I am about to list, is obviously not a complete list of all the parts of the writing puzzle, but I think they are the ones that we need to actively be teaching and fostering in our classrooms.  Using this thinking, it is likely, rather than one 'writing session' you will be teaching the foundations or building blocks of writing over the day in bite sized chunks, bringing these things together for sessions where children do write independently, but the 'modelling' sessions may not look like they used to.

I have not gone into great depth in any area, as I don't want this post to bore you, rather I would like it to either be affirming, or give further food for thought.

I preface this all by saying, this works beautifully in a classroom following a play pedagogy and the very nature of play, will foster and develop many of the areas I list.

1) Executive Functioning

These are often completely overlooked when people think of writing, but if I am unable to keep an idea in my head, long enough to plan or write my story, how do I actually write it?  

More significantly, if I am cognitively overloaded by having to concentrate on some of the other areas listed, I simply don't have the cognitive bandwidth to keep my idea in my head.  

Now, there is research to say working memory can not be improved and other research that says it can be improved.  Whichever is true, I think the most important thing we can do, so that a child can keep an idea in their head long enough to get it written down, is free up the load other tasks are placing on them.  As Anita Archer would say, teach the stuff and cut the fluff.

When we look at writing beyond working memory, we also see the other executive functions play a massive role in just being able to engage in the process of writing.

2) Formation

This has been ground breaking for me.  I knew handwriting was important, but didn't really think of the role it played in writing.  Seems silly to say this now, but I didn't see it as actually part of my writing approach. 

Being able to automatically form little shapes leads to fluency (accurate and at an appropriate speed.) By automatic, I mean, they appear not to even have to think about it.   This very obviously frees up cognitive space to concentrate on the other skills that writing requires.  This means, that handwriting sessions are integral to writing and need to be part of an everyday programme. 

If we look at my discussion around our reluctant writings, this is possibly one of the core skill deficits  that led to their supposed 'reluctance.'

I also love this Anita Archer quote "If you expect it, pre-correct it."  This is so relevant to letter formation for our youngest learners.  As teachers of our youngest learners, we already know what it is they will struggle with and what habits they will form, if we allow them time to do so.

3) Fine Motor and Gross Motor Skills

This links in strongly with formation, as it is basically impossible to learn to form letter shapes correctly, if holding a pencil and sitting upright is a challenge.  

Children need core strength for handwriting, coordination and balance, they need to know where they are in space, to have the hand strength necessary to ensure holding a pencil is not an overly difficult task.  This is a massive area and I won't list all of the things a child is having to put together movement wise in order to write, but we do need to give the credit deserved to the complexity of this process.

So although it might not sound like part of a writing session, this is part of it and an awareness of fostering these movement skills is vital.  Again, where a play pedagogy comes in very, very handy!

The Key Strengths & physical skills needed for handwriting:

Gross Motor Skills (Posture Base)
Gross Motor Skills (Bilateral Coordination)
Fine Motor Skills (Sensory Perception)
Fine Motor Skills (Hand and Finger Muscles)
Eye Tracking Ability.
Spatial Awareness.
Motor Memory.
Visual Memory.

4) Encoding (spelling)

This is an area I massively overlooked when I thought of writing sessions.  Encoding now takes prime of place in our whole class literacy sessions (decoding, formation and spelling combined.)

Providing encoding practice that is based on a scope and sequence and taught systematically is vital.  I am not talking about good old word lists that get sent home, supposedly memorised and tested on a Friday.  I am talking about explicit teaching of encoding, based on sound to print, focusing on parts of the code being learned, where children are adding, deleting and substituting sounds.    I am talking about the spelling of specific sound patterns that are being learned, with repeated practice, to the point of automaticity.  I am talking about retrieval practice and interleaved practice, where parts of the code that have been taught, are woven into new learning and revisited again over time.

Why is this important, well the less children have to deliberately think about how to spell each word, the more they will be free to write well developed pieces, unhampered by poor spelling understandings.  If they have  many spelling understandings under their belt, and know how to spell many words, they will also be more willing to add interesting words into their writing that they may not yet be able to spell.

When I think about our 'reluctant' boys, this was an integral reason they were reluctant, spelling the words was just so incredibly hard.

Dictated sentences, based on the parts of the code we have learned and are learning have become a regular part of my practice, these are also gold for teaching children what a sentence is and what it needs to have.

You have a go at writing a sentence in a language that you have basic understanding and see how complex and creative your sentence is.

5) Irregular Words

Again, linked strongly to reading, but the spelling of irregular words is vital to building fluency of writing.  Words like (the, my, was, saw) are words that we come across so many times in the sentences we want to write.  If each time, we have to think about how to spell them, that is cognitive bandwidth taken away from the writing process.  

Many irregular words will only be irregular, till children have that part of the code and are learned exactly the same way as we teach regular words.  

6) Oral Language and Vocabulary

Oral language forms a huge part of our approach to writing.  A trend at the moment is a real decline in oral language.  This downward slide of oral language has been something I have noticed over the last 12 years and it is only getting worse.

If a child can not speak in a full sentence, how an earth do we expect them to write one.   We need to be providing explicit opportunities to develop oral language, to concentrate on the clear articulation of sounds, to hear wonderful language through poetry and rich texts if we want our children to be capable writers.   Children need to be exposed to rich vocabulary and develop a rich vocabulary bank of their own.

Again, there is a massive link to reading here and the development of a knowledge rich curriculum.

7) Sentence Construction

Explicit teaching of what a complete sentence is, is a vital part of the writing programme.  Children need to be systematically taught the parts of a sentence, learning about syntax and morphology.  I think I noticed the most dramatic progress in my classes writing when I became more explicit in teaching them about complete sentences.  It seems so simple, but is incredibly powerful.   I love Colourful Semantics for this, combined with the Syntax Project.

8) Idea Generation and Knowledge Development

If coming up with an idea is hard, how an earth do I write?  If I have very little understanding of my world, how do I write, what do I write?  

Coming up with an idea can be explicitly modelled, using pictures, songs, poems, videos etc  Children need to be taught how to do this. 

 When it comes to knowledge, our classrooms need to be places where knowledge about the world and connected schemas are actively developed.   I found the writing of factual pieces, based on the knowledge we had been learning, really assisted my classes progress with writing.  Because they had the knowledge, having something to write about was easy and creating connected ideas, even easier.  This focus on knowledge also brings in many Scientific understandings, which is an added bonus in a time poor classroom.

This post is just a very basic look at the facets that go into an approach to teaching writing effectively. 

 I share a lot of my practice through my facebook group Number Agents, if you are keen to see more or ask any questions. 

I am always learning and I think that that is one of the most important dispositions a teacher can have.  

 Writing is a massive area and far more complex than it appears on the surface.    

There is much more to writing than meets the eye.