Topic5 Writing Skill

• Factors Affecting Writing Competency

• Fine motor skill

• Fine motor skills involve the small muscles of the body that enable such functions as writing, grasping small objects, and fastening clothing. They involve strength, fine motor control and dexterity.

Many toys, like the ones below, can develop fine motor skills: For school aged children, board games with pieces and parts to pick up

and move are ideal for developing these skills. Jenga is a strategy game using fine motor skills that focuses on the

pincher grip, which is used in writing. Remote control cars are great for preschool and elementary kids. Video games can help, but watch out for carpal tunnel syndrome. Be

sure to check the video

• Visual-motor Coordination

• Visual-motor coordination is the ability to coordinate vision with the movements of the body or parts of the body

• Writing Problems of Students with Learning Difficulties

• One of the simplest ways to study the writing problems of learners with learning difficulties is to analyze their writing samples. These samples will reveal the problems they have with handwriting, spelling and written expression.

Handwritting Features Problems

Shape Letters are slanted.Shape varies from standard.

Size Too large.Too small.Not uniform,

Space Letters within a word are too crowded.Too much space in between letters.

Alignment Letters are not sitting on lines in the book.Height of letters are not consistent.

Line Quality Letters are written too heavily or too lightly.

•Handwriting Problems. Some of the problems are:

Spelling errors. Some of these are:

Errors Primarily Due to Auditory Deficits

1. Substitutes t for d, f for v , sh for ch 2. Omits vowels in two-syllable words because of inability to discriminate between sounds, for example, pish for polish3. Spells beginning or ending of the word correctly but middle of the word may be missing or spelled wrongly, for examle hd for hand.4. Confuses vowel. For example, spells bit as bet5. Omits the second letter in blends. For examp[le spells fled as fed.6. Uses a synonym. For example, Spells house for home.7. Omits word endings. For example omits ed, s and ing.8. Spell word that has little or no relationship with the word dictated. For example. Spells cat for home.

Errors Primarily Due to Visual Deficits

1. Spells correctly the beginning or ending of the word but omits the middle. Example, Spells hapy for happy.2. Gives the correct letters but in the wrong sequence. Example : teh for the.3. Reverses letters. For example: Writes b for d, on for no, or was for saw.4. Inverts letters. For example: Writes u for n, m for w.5. Mixes up capital and small letters. For example: cAT.6. Spelling words phonetically that are non-phonetic in configuration. For example: tuff for tough

Language Awareness

• Language Awareness can be defined as explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use.

• Language Skills

• Sentence construction

• sentence is a complete thought or idea. As an example, ‘I write fanfic’ is a sentence.

• Punctuation are marks such as periods (.), question marks (?), exclamation points (!), commas (,), apostrophes (‘), quotation marks (“”), semi-colons (;), and colons (:).

• Commas• Commas are one of the most important punctuation marks, yet they

are often ignored or misused.

• Quotations• In fiction, quotations are used mainly for writing dialogue, or your

characters’ speech.

• Paragraph writing

• A paragraph is a group of sentences that all revolve around the same topic or idea

Techniques for Teaching Writing

• Cloze

• Based on or being a test of reading comprehension in which the test taker is asked to supply words that have been systematically deleted from a text. Cloze procedure is a technique in which words are deleted from a passage according to a word-count formula or various other criteria.

• Spelling

• Incorrect spellling may often give the reader the impression that the writer is careless and lacks education. One should try and remember that spelling is often very difficult for learners studying English because of the lack of correlation between the sound of a word and how it is actually spelt.

• Developing a Written Vocabulary

• For the pupil who has just been taught English, the starting point for teaching writing would be just copying. The English syllabus requires that the learner learn theme-related words like parts of the body or types of transportation.

• Simple sentence construction

• One of the most recommended methods of teaching learners to read written sentences is the Language Experience Approach. In this approach, the learner tells the teacher a story or anything at all about himself.

• Teaching of Grammar

• Troublesome Grammar

• For practice with troublesome grammatical structures, have an assortment of dittoed choice and filling the blank exercises on the following areas:

• Verb tenses• Prepositions• Question formation• Adjective placement• Modals

• Sentence Structuring

• On index cards, write a sentence or question, with each word on a separate card. On the back, number each word card in sequence.

• Memory Games

• In this activity, you may divide the learners into two groups. Give each group a copy of the same picture. Tell them to look at it but do not tell them that they are expected to memorise the items in the picture.

• Miming an Action

• Create two piles of cards. One pile should consist of cards with an adverb written on each and the other pile with the meaning. Divide the learners into two groups.

• Grammar Quiz

• You could initiate a grammar quiz for two teams. Write a verb infinitive on the board and the first team to write the correct past participle on the board is awarded a point.