Does reading always improve creative writing?

[JustADadHere]

Whilst being a great reader doesn't make one a great writer, there are very few, if any, great writers who are not great readers.

[Daogroupie]

True, but you can become a writer without being a reader and becoming a good writer certainly prompts students into becoming readers. I see it happen every day. They start to learn how to do it themselves and want to learn more which of course can be found in the pages of the masters of the art. DG

[parent2013]

We tried a whole range of top books on classics, fiction and non-fiction etc. From my experience, reading definitely helped my ds in couple of areas such as building wide vocabulary, increasing ability to comprehend texts and building good reading speed. However, it did not help him much in terms of doing well in creative writing. I think it is the boys thing that they are good at numbers but their head does not seem to click for creative writing. Unfortunately there's not much support you may get from the school and what they teach there is below standards on what is required for GS. We did managed to crack it in the end but it wasn’t an easy journey.

[yoyo123]

I'm not sure that it is true to say that the level of writing taught is below standards required for Grammar School. Year 6 so far have been learning adjectival phrases, passive and active voice, , main and sub clauses..I certainly didn't learn these at 11.

Year 5 are starting sentences with adverbial phrases and time connectives and learning different genres of writing, recall and recount, persuasive writing ( including rhetorical questions), and different forms of fiction, writing their own myths and legends after studying the genre and identifying the main points in legends from different cultures

[Immortal Dreams]

Yes. With almost any book, the more complex the better (though not so complex they don't understand it).

I agree with you - if a variety of sentences are to be used in writing, they have to be explicitly taught and practised. You can do this by giving a list of examples, numbering them, and they then throw a dice and have to write a sentence type corresponding to that number on a chosen topic. For example: Next to the number 5 is an adverb starter : Angrily, he stomped across the room and slammed the door behind him. Award points for correct sentence. Play often

I completely disagree with you. Sentence structure does not have to be taught or practised, it can be picked up from a young age. Whilst this game may engage them and might help them to understand what an adverb is, it is unlikely that their creative writing will improve through it. You cannot roll a dice in an exam. There is a difference between being able to give an example of a sentence with an adverb/adjective/etc in it and knowing when to use it. Reading may not improve their creativity, but it will improve their knowledge of the English language. Many people don't seem to understand that more marks are awarded for description, sentence structure etc than they are for plot or speech. Even those that do understand this insist on getting their DC to memorise certain similes/metaphors/vocab and then use them in an exam, whether or not they are appropriate. If I see one more sentence about how the branches look like witches fingers, I'll throw up.

Overall, I feel that your best bet is to encourage your DD to read from an early age so that by the time you need to worry about exams, they understand the complexities of writing and are able to explain them to you without being taught a 'specific' method.

[yoyo123]

Writing comes from the heart, the twiddles can be taught, but the essence has to come from yourself...

[kateJ]

This is a reply to Immortal Dreams:

I'm sorry to disagree with you but the game works - teaching sentence structure and encouraging a child to use them in his or her writing really works. The aim of the game is a form of drilling - and it definitely works. Teaching a variety of sentence structures is vital if you want a child to get away from simple sentences. This can be done first by analysing a paragraph from a book they are reading, then practising these structures for themselves. The same for paragraph and story openers.

When preparing a child for a writing exam I'm afraid a bit of formulaic teaching really helps - with syntax and style.

[Daogroupie]

Immortal dreams, you are a young student in KS3 or KS4 who has been taught English, you have not just picked it up. You do not just pick up sentence structure from reading , it needs to be taught and if you don't use it you will forget it and it will need to be retaught. Students who prepared over the summer for the state school exams in September who then relaxed and did not rev up again for the private school exams in January did not do as well as those who simply carried on preparing and got better and better. You do not stand still, you go backwards because others overtake you. DG

[pist]

Reading definitely helps, but it is NOT a magic bullet! I do think that children who naturally have a knack for writing, sort of learn by osmosis from what they read, but that child is not EVERY child. I have two dcs at top selective schools. One hardly ever touches a book, but writes like a dream (albeit with haphazard spelling and dodgy commas) and often gets her pieces read out in class. Dc1 is simply a great storyteller. Dc2 more or less taught herself to read at aged 2 1/2 and is rarely seen without a book, having read everything under the sun including dozens of classics. She seems to struggle sorting her ideas out on her head and is a master of totally incoherent sentences and stories filled with irrelevant detail ending with "they all went home to bed" or "it was all just a dream" - good job she's a great mathematician!

[Immortal Dreams]

I'm sorry; I see now my post was quite misleading. I did not quite get across what I was trying to say and saying "sentence structure does not have to be taught and practised, it can be picked up from a young age" was wrong. I agree with you kateJ - teaching a variety of sentence structure is vital and some formulaic teaching will help. What I meant to say was that reading means children can see how (hopefully) talented writers' sentences flow. Some students attempt to use complex sentence structure before they fully understand it, meaning their writing comes across as fragmented and stilted.

However, I hold to the belief that understanding what a particular technique is is very different to knowing when to use it.

I also believe strongly that encouraging your child to read from an early age is more important than teaching them technique from an early age. If you are only beginning to encourage them to read in Year 5, they will not be able to learn technique at the same time. However, a child who can read fluently from Year 2 or 3 will have more of a depth of understanding to begin with, so that when teaching them technique you are not starting from scratch.

This is what I was attempting to communicate - I'm sorry it came across incorrectly.