Supporting blog from Dr Helen Walls

 Dr Helen Walls, The Writing Teacher, explains why we should move away from constructivism and towards explicit teaching.


https://www.essentialresources.co.nz


Key takeaways:

  • The explicit teaching of writing skills is essential. We must show children how to form letters, how to segment words, and how to write in sentences.
We do handwriting daily. This is still a struggle for some but being explicit and teaching letter groups has made a difference. BSLA phonics being tranfered to our writing programme has been a game changer.
  • Knowledge must be explicitly taught too. Here, I refer to literacy-related knowledge (such as knowledge of spelling patterns and text structures) but also conceptual and vocabulary knowledge across all subject areas
Again BSLA has been a great resource and using the scope and sequence has been useful.
  • We must remember that vocabulary knowledge is the strongest predictor of reading comprehension by Year 8
The BSLA vocab enriching texts have been valuable. The higher level language has been great and even those children who can not read and write it yet can engage with the vocab.
  • Teach knowledge-rich lessons in science and history, and then use these as inspiration for writing. For example, one could teach students about the solar system and then have students write stories set on Mars. This will reinforce students’ content knowledge and their knowledge of narrative text structure 
This is my goal for term 4. To weave writing and kaupapa together. 

Comments

  1. ToutouwaiOctober 8, 2024 at 3:31 AM

    Kia Ora Kim
    I cannot wait to undertake the BSLA PD next year, as I would love to have the skills to elaborate on what our tamariki bring to their writing. With years one and two there is a huge gap in abilities and at times it troubles me, as I hope I am accommodating all tamariki and their needs.
    Years one and two really need letter formation everyday and then sentence structure, which can be a real challenge with some. However, the growth I have seen in the tamariki this year, has inspired me to push just a little bit more, to challenge their thinking and create some real stories. Hopefully BSLA, or the next courses our government have in store for us, will give me the tools necessary, to empower our tamariki with the basics they need, to be ready to take on the challenges of future learning.

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