Teaching writing to beginners

The complexities of writing as a communication skill have been established in earlier treatises. This piece, specifically, focuses on how to cultivate writing skills in young learners and what to focus on in doing so.

Preparing young persons for a writing career is consequential, given that writing inability is a major cause of stagnation in the modern world. Writing has grown beyond being an academic requirement to becoming a requisite skill for surviving any kind of life endeavour.

According to Adejare (2017), doctors and nurses write medical reports on patients, accountants and business managers create financial reports, engineers and software technicians write instructional sheets and user manuals, nearly every worker in all business fields composes emails and other forms of written communication for customers, clients and co-workers.

Ultimately, the number of job tasks that require writing is countless. This underscores the importance of writing not only as a communication skill, but also as a life-enhancing skill.

This explains why the United States National Commission on Writing reports in 2004 that nearly seventy per cent of salaried employees have at least some responsibility for writing, and the ability to write well is a critical component of being able to communicate effectively to a variety of audience.

The importance of language in almost every life engagement is, therefore, the first reason why writing has to be taught and taken seriously from childhood. Writing helps young children to think better.

Critical thinking is aided by writing. Thoughts are clearer, and their implications are more glaring when scribbled down than when spoken. Developing writing skills in children early enough helps them acquire the needed tool for learning, communication and self-expression.

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Lastly, writing helps to define and grow one’s personality. While spoken words are random, written words are often carefully chosen. Hence, writing makes it easy to carve a niche for oneself and identify where one’s interest lies.

Now, I shall discuss some ways reading can be inculcated in children. First, parents and teachers must help children grow their vocabulary through reading. Recall that vocabulary means the words that a person knows and can use conveniently. Having a robust vocabulary will help children represent their thoughts well in writing.

They should be encouraged to read storybooks and other forms of materials to achieve a wide vocabulary. They should be guided to identify the words in any piece, which catch their attention, and the words that help them understand the focus of any piece of writing.

Again, attention should be paid to students’ spelling ability. They must perfect their spelling skills in order to do well in writing. According to Graham (1999), spelling skills can affect the words students choose because they may be less likely to use words they cannot spell.

The mechanics of spelling must, therefore, be well taught to students from childhood in order to increase their lexical choices during writing. Next to this is the need to teach students to form meaningful and coherent sentences. They should be taught to generate sentences that are descriptive and that vary in length and complexities.

Importantly, also, young persons or learners must be encouraged to give adequate time to writing. As a skill which is only developed through practice, dedicating sufficient time to it is a way to get better at doing it.

Dedicating sufficient time to writing helps to develop the children’s confidence in their writing ability. Teachers and parents should observe how students write and help them find solutions to their writing challenges early enough.

Some students will have challenges with spellings while others will have issues with forming coherent sentences. These challenges should be patiently corrected in children early enough.

Young students should also be taught to use their writings to achieve different purposes. According to Adejare (2017), writing serves different purposes such as conveying information, making an argument, providing a means for self-reflection, sharing an experience, enhancing understanding of reading or providing entertainment. When they are made to know these various uses that writing serves, it helps them see a reason to write more regularly.

Finally, young persons can be guided through the writing processes. It is never too early to let children know that they can think about whatever they wish to write on and put down their points before proceeding to the proper writing. It should also be emphasised that they have to proofread their writings after the first draft.

Writing is a taxing intellectual activity. As such, it is important that children are taught its act and art from a young age.