WRITING
As there are many reasons for speaking, there are many reasons for writing too. The process of watching a child learn how to write can be a magical one. However, for some children, this is a struggle.
Once a happy and able writer, the world opens up for you. You have a means of communication and therefore an alternative way to express yourself, to create, to explore and to produce.
Today, there can often be a sad and misplaced focus on the mechanics of writing; children become preoccupied with their handwriting, their spelling and their grammar. Some are told the teacher will not even look at their work if it doesn’t contain capital letters and full stops.
At Chapter 82, we recognise that handwriting, spelling and correct grammar have value but we believe these should come after children are fluent in communicating with honesty, engagement and love. In essence, the mechanics should come after the purpose and after the context. If we overwhelm anyone with these mechanics, they become overloaded (even the teachers!) How can they possibly manage to write in a meaningful and engaging way if they are worrying about trying to add enough fronted adverbials or desperately searching for a rubber to correct their spellings? The more we write, the better we get at writing - it is as simple as this. The more we write, the more we produce and this then opens up opportunities to edit and develop work and apply some of the more technical aspects mentioned above.
Writing is not mathematics, it is an art. In Early Years settings, we often see the magic of emergent writing and the praise received by children who are busy mark-making and excitedly sharing off their writing. This is not writing in inverted commas, it is writing in it’s infancy; communication through mark-making. This is a beautiful and honest process and we can lose this magic if we aren’t sensitive to how we approach the privilege of supporting children in learning how to write.
There is time to improve, to revisit and to develop. It takes so much more time however to restore confidence and reengage a child who has switched off. We want to support teachers and parents in this process. We want to work with the children who love to write but we also are passionate about working with those children who find writing boring, difficult, worrying or believe that it is impossible.