Reading age of 15+, how does it help in GS ?

[kenyancowgirl]

Hmmm...Amber....is it gideon by another name, perchance?

[kenyancowgirl]

mystery, slightly off topic but in all seriousness, is your school really bad at everything? (I can't honestly remember you being positive about anything they do.) Most schools have some saving grace and, I don't think you have said that it is in special measures so I'm just wondering what it is that has made you stick with them? Do other parents find it as bad as you and, if so, why aren't Ofsted involved?

[Minesatea]

Back to the original question, if my three DC are in any way representative then they show no connection between good reading skills/love for reading and an ability to write well. I have two who are avid readers and have always had reading ages well above their chronological age but who have always struggled to write well (generally better at maths and science), and a third who has always written stories for pleasure, is best at languages and essay based subjects yet rarely picks up a book!

Creative writing finally clicked for DS1 just in time for his iGCSE English language exam and he is now taking creative writing as an AS level (although I feel a girl may be involved in this decision) so dont dispair with your DC yet, it takes some longer than others to get it.

[mystery]

I would second that. There is no great correlation between reading (in its widest sense) and writing beautifully. But you sure have a better chance of learning a whole load of stuff if you do read well.

[yoyo123]

Believe me, writing is taught in primary.

I was amazed at the depth.... adverbial phrases adjectival phrases, the need to avoid comma splicing, relative clauses, subordinate and main phrases. I was never taught all this in grammar school, let alone in junior school. Work is drafted and redrafted.

We have been looking at poetry this week, stanzas, imagery, personification, metaphor , simile, analysing and comparing different styles of poem on a theme. I did that for o level.

[Amber]

Work is drafted and redrafted.

Personal bugbear this. As a teacher I found it wrung out from my struggling writers all the last remnants of creativity and desire to write. As a writer, I find exactly the same. Why oh why is this foisted on tiny children? Editing is fine, doing your best is fine, but making youngsters who are just beginning to put stuff down on paper draft it and redraft it is cruel and I reckon it kills all the joy of writing for them. I noticed a law of diminishing returns too - the first draft was often the best, at least in terms of of spark and creativity. Tinker, play with words, change bits by all means- all that stuff - but it tends to look messy when you do that and messy goes down like a lead balloon in schools.

As for all the other stuff - I think it encourages the idea that you can reduce writing to a formula - include one adverbial clause, one line of speech, don't splice with commas...and bingo! A good story!

Sorry, I guess I am out of step. Which is one reason I left teaching.

[mystery]

There should be more choice now in how creative writing is taught in primary schools than when people felt they should slavishly follow the national literacy strategy. Also, the year 6 writing is no longer externally marked in a test and I don't think will be in thenew national curriculum tests either.

I think each school differs in its approach to teaching writing - but a lot still seem to be stuck in the way the national literacy strategy said it should be done. I don't know why when that died a death years ago. I think the new national curriculum for literacy is fairly slim compared with what teachers seem to think they should still teach - hours of writing in every genre under the sun when each child probably has one or two genres they love writing in and the rest are **** on earth for them.

[berks_mum]

My biggest fear is - suppression of stream of consciousness to meet the AF objectives. I was surprised to see how creative writing is assessed: connectives used, sentences variation, ambitious vocabulary, adherence to SPAG rules …. Makes me think what is the measure of creativity?

[Guest55]

In Bucks some schools have been part of the 'Teachers as Writers' project which seems very interesting

http://www.nwp.org.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[indiemom]

Back to the original question, if my three DC are in any way representative then they show no connection between good reading skills/love for reading and an ability to write well. I have two who are avid readers and have always had reading ages well above their chronological age but who have always struggled to write well (generally better at maths and science), and a third who has always written stories for pleasure, is best at languages and essay based subjects yet rarely picks up a book!

Creative writing finally clicked for DS1 just in time for his iGCSE English language exam and he is now taking creative writing as an AS level (although I feel a girl may be involved in this decision) so dont dispair with your DC yet, it takes some longer than others to get it.

This thread was going a bit away from the topic, thanks a lot for bringing it back.

I think what I gathered from this thread that the reading age has no connection with creative writing ability (as I have seen my DSs case). One reason might be if the child is good in maths and science (which is more of a straight forward fact based to me where there is no creativity involved in that sense unless someone is going towards research field at a much later stage) then he/she may not be good in creative writing, but 'exception proves the law' though

AFter reading your story, I am hopeful that some children do develop good writing skills at a later stage. I think that also depends on how good and inspiring their english teacher is. My DSs currently english teacher is pushing them and guiding them well, so they are motivated and doing better than before it seems. Keeping my fingers crossed