TEACHING WRITING TO YOUNG LEARNER

A. What is Writing

Writing is a combination of process and product (Sokolik, 2003). The process refers to

the act of gathering ideas and working with them until they are presented in a manner that is

polished and comprehensible to readers. The concept that writing is a process is very useful to

young writers (Olson, 2003). Young learners like to know writing is done in steps which are as

important as the steps necessary to cook something such as chicken or eggs. In addition, when

teaching writing to young children, we must recognize the complexity of the process (Dorn and

Soffors, 2001, p. 2) young learner need to know that a final peace of writing or the product such

as a look, his grown out of many steps which make up the process.

B. Background to the Teaching Writing

When you are teaching writing to children who are four to seven years old, you must

consider to separate areas of development. First, do your students have the fine motor or physical

skills necessary to hold a pencil firmly in the hands and form letter on paper. Second, do they

have the cognitive skills necessary to formulate ideas and write the in to paper.

Native English speaking children are usually taught how to print before being taught to

write cursive letter. Student are taught printed letter first because they resemble letter found in

book and, according to many teacher, forming printed letter is easier than forming cursive ones

because they have more straight line and complete circles. Young learner are often taught how to

form letter by tracing line, circle, semi circle, triangle because this preparation help them master

the formation of the shapes that are use for letter.

Example:

Print : My name is Tommy

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 Cursive : my name is Tommy
C. The Development of Writing Skills

Process writing helps have native English-speaking children as well as EFL or ESL

young learner develop English language writing skills. Process writing is especially appropriate

for ESL or EFL young learners because one of the prominent features is an emphasize on fluency.

The process writing approach involves the process step necessary to produce a good quality final

piece of writing. As a teacher of writing, you need to balance the role of the process and the

importance of the product. The process begin by thinking about what is going to be written

(choosing a topic) and collecting idea both formally and informally. The final step is publish. The

broad definition of publish is to make public. A piece of writing is published when it’s put it into

a form which can be formally shared with the other.

a. Types in written text that children can produce

One type of writing that is common in EFL classroom is pen-pal or pen friend letter. Pen-

pal letter allow the children to develop writing skill within the context of an authentic and

purposeful writing activity (Berril and Gall, 2000). Other types of correspondence can also help

children use writing in a meaningful way (Linse, 1998).

Children can create their own version of virtually anything that has print. Children who

understand the concept of print can produce writing even if they are at the beginning stages of

English development. It is important that the piece of writing be meaningful for the learner.

Children will also enjoy writing text that can be classified as environmental print. For many

children that is very meaningful types of writing.

Depending of the depending the final product that children produce, you may utilize

some or all of the steps of the writing process. For example, if children are writing a journal for

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 their own use, then you need won’t need to worry about editing and publishing the writing

because it is not meant to be formally shared with other.

b. The Writing Process: Prewriting

In the classroom, prewriting can be as simple as drawing activity, or it can woven into a

discussion between the teacher and learner. As a prewrite, the teacher review that the children

have been doing related to writing newspaper article. He ask a number of questions to focus on

what they have already done. He write down the children’s ideas on the board. As a second

prewriting activity, he ask the children to draw a picture for different news paper stories.

Through the prewriting activity, children have been primed so they immediately got to

work. The next step is for them to write the title for their newspaper article and to begin to write

the article itself.

c. The writing Process: Writing

After you have done prewriting the next steps is to get thought and ideas down on paper.

Young learner need to know that at this point in the writing process, the can write down any

idea related to the topic. The idea can be arranged, added to, and edited later on.

d. The writing process: Revising

Revising occurs when a writer looks for feedback from a teacher or another students

(Vaca, Vaca and Gove, 2000). The student finished writing, they also often see the teacher’s

role as either saying that everything is fine or being copyeditor and fixing all spelling and

grammar errors. Instead, you want to establish yourself in the role of consultant for your

learner. Your role is to help them learn how to make their writing interesting and

comprehensible to the reader.

e. The writing process: editing

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 Children have hard time to accepting that editing is necessary. They are very honest

about how painful it can be to rework a piece they feel is already finished. Correcting children’s

error and helping children find and correct their own errors present a real dilemma for teacher.

on the other hand, they need to know how to write using standard convention of spelling,

grammar, and punctuation.

f. The writing process: publishing

Publishing refers to putting the writing in a final finished format where it can be shared

with others. Publishing can be a great motivator for young learner. For example, young learner

might write poems about the rain that they encountered on their way to school. And then, the

children publish their poem on raindrop-shaped paper and hang them from the ceiling as

mobiles.

D. Classroom Technique and Activities

Several technique and activities for implementing different aspect of process writing are

discussed in this section.

1. Writing Models

Good writers are readers and good writers read both fiction and nonfiction. The model

can serve as a prewrite for children to write about their favorite animals and show how to publish

writing with a combination of text and illustrations.

Favorite stories can also be used as a model. Children can be eased into writing their own

stories by reading a story and then writing the prequel or sequel.

2. Group Writing

Children can work collaboratively on a writing project, but it needs to be carefully organized

on the part of the teacher. You might begin group writing by doing a language experience

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approach story. The language experience approach is used to teach children reading, but can also

be used to introduce writing and group writing.

You can show children how different members of the class contributed to a group story by

writing the child’s initial next to each line he contributed. You can also have young learner create

a group bock. And the learner also can work in small group to create different pieces of written

text.

3. Talking and Writing Box

The creation of the box is a prewriting activity in and of itself. for writing activity, you can

give students a prompt or suggestion about what to write. You may also want to model the

activity by following different prompt and writing about your own talking and writing box.

4. Writing Center

The writing center can be used by children at any stages of the writing process. They can use

it as a place to start pieces of writing or as a place to publish their writing. The writing center can

also be used for writing conferences between the teacher and students or between two classmates.

5. Writing Conferences

One common and very useful way to help children with revising is with writing conferences.

There can be one conferences per piece of writing , or there can be a series of conferences for

specific piece of writing. They can be brief, two or three minute in length, or longer, up to half an

hour. They should always be focused first on the content.

6. Inventive Spelling

Inventive spelling refers to student attempt at spelling word based on their developing

cognitive and literacy skills. Invented spelling can reveal valuable information about the child’s

English language literacy development.

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 7. Word Walls

Word walls are list of word that the children have encountered in their reading and that can be

used in their writing. These list should be posted on the walls of your classroom-hence their

name. Different word walls can have different focuses.

E. Writing in the Classroom

More and more young learner course book are including a writing component. For young

learner under the age of five, emphasis is often placed on the formation of the letters themselves.

This page is aimed at helping children develop the fine motor skill required to write English-

language letter.

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 CONCLUSION

A. Conclusion

Writing is a process and products were discussed as well as the physical act of forming

letter. The different steps or stages of a process used to produce pieces of written text were

explored. Attention was paid to helping children become excited about writing by creating

pieces of written text that are representative of different genre ranging from cereal boxes to

stories.

B. Suggestion

Writing is important for young learner. In teaching and modeling writing were also

provided for learner at different stages of language and literacy development, and wide range

of written product than children can produce were also included.