All About English Composition

[Chenonceau]

chamonix:

Hi pixiedust,

There are always two sides to every coin. Of course, all parents will be delighted to see their children writing well without memorisation. However, like babies who develop at different rates, a child's ability to write develops differently too. Unfortunately, our education system does not wait for one to develop at his/her own pace. (At least, not the grading and streaming.) The discrepancy between reading and writing that you pointed out is very true. The following is an exerpt lifted out from a Model Essay book -

Why use a model?

Sometimes the reading material we use provides an ideal model. For instance, Kit Wright's poem \"Magic Box\" works without fail to produce good writing. However, most adult writing for children is actually too subtle and complex to offer a model that can be easily imitated. To put it bluntly, Ted Hughes' The Iron Man is a great book to use with Year 4 children. But Hughes was a genius at level 3000, and Darren at 8 years old is only at level 2! ...

I was once uncomfortable with the idea of models memorisation (even though my siblings scored A1s for Literature by memorisation despite scoring a C6 for English ). However a recent encounter changed my perception a little. A mother confessed to me that her upper primary school child was horrid at writing. But by memorising models, he was able to put something down on paper. I hope the writing confidence he gained through memorisation will help him work towards being an independent writer in time to come.

Btw, my kids do read and enjoy the so-called \"trash books\" immensely. They often share the silly and funny bits that they come across. From there, they develop the skill and habit of picking up certain phrases & vocabulary from books, stick them in their minds and share as and when they see fit. So, many things are but different strokes for different folks.

I find this post wise and nuanced. :goodpost:

To add to it, I notice that this thread started on the issue of COPYING compos, not memorizing compos. Many people hope that by getting a child to copy, the child will remember. People hope one leads to the other. But the 2 are not the same.

Memorizing Compos
I have recently become a convert of memorizing compos. For a child who does not even hear the language at home and rarely uses it in school, memorizing is helpful to the extent that it imperfectly mimics immersion. Perhaps not 100% recall of the whole text for the purpose of wholesale regurgitation, but it does help to read a good quality compo enough times to have phrases stick in the head for future use. Little Boy's Chinese compos have jumped 6 points out of 20 and he is beginning to read Chinese fiction with greater pleasure than before. I'm like \"Wow!\".

We've never had to do this for English because we speak English at home, and Little Boy in P5 is already reading Isaac Asimov, Malcom Gladwell and Michael Crichton for pleasure.

Copying Compos
What I am against is the practice of copying in order to memorize. Copying is a physical activity and physical activity is controlled by a different part of our brain. Think about it. Can one walk absentmindedly into the men's toilet? Can one turn absent-mindedly into the wrong street? Unless one makes a conscious effort to copy mindfully, the brain (for reasons of efficiency) will manage copying activities on auto-pilot... a mode that does not engage the higher order cognitive processes.

I expect my children to remember an English word from ONE glance. English is their first language. I expect Little Boy to remember how to write Chinese words for ting xie at ONE copy... or at most 2. And I find it effective already. However, if the cognitive resources for memorizing is fully deployed, there is no need to copy to remember. Copying is like a crutch for the clumsy. Little Boy is weak and clumsy in Chinese. Soon however, he will get stronger. A crutch gets in the way of an athlete and slows him down. In 1 or 2 years, I hope Little Boy can remember Chinese words at a glance.

[Herbie]

Hi Chamonix


I agreed with you that many things are but different strokes for different folks.

[csc]

Some of my after-thots


If there is passion and love for writing ,one will tend to write well. Writing needs to have a purpose - and not just for exams . The child takes pride in his writing and experiences immense satisfaction from it.

The key to reading is for pleasure ultimately and linguistic skills are just picked up along the way. There is no need to get the child to read beyond his level. It is a natural process. Parents can interfere to ensure that the child read widely ( focus on width and not depth) - books of different interests and topics, newspapers , magazines etc

Well, home environment and maybe 'genes' do play a part in honing the writing skills. In a home where reading and writing is frequent and done naturally, the child will grow to love reading and writing naturally.

Enjoying the process beats the end result. The end result should be a love for reading and writing for a life time and not merely a distinction in English during exams

[Chenonceau]

chamonix:

Hi Chenonceau,


You have got mail.


Hi jasmineong, atutor2001 & pixiedust,

Thanks for the compliments. :oops:

Hi Chamonix,
I've PM-ed you some rough recommendations based on the situation you described... but am a bit uncomfortable because it still isn't enough information for me to be very sure. So... just ask if you think it doesn't make sense.

[tisha]

tamarind:

Hi tamarind,
Could you suggest some good books for 12 year olds. MTIA.

Hi tisha,
For boy or girl ?

Its for a boy.
Just to share these are the kind of books my DS reads. Harry-Potter(for the nth time), Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeromino Stinton, Captain Underpants, Midnight or Horror something..., Ronald Dahl, H.I.V.E, Horrible Science (All this book choice are due to peer influence, I did not pick them up for him. Infact he rarely reads what I pick up from the library for him, he finds thme boring. I just pick up info books which are related to the P6 English Comprehension like Civilisation, Famous Personalities, Environment etc He does browse thru it for my sake, but is not passionate about it.)
His non fiction choice would be books on Fighter Planes, UFOs, Race Cars, Chess, Interesting Facts, Jokes etc...
I don't mind him reading what he likes, but I would like to expand his reading to a broader range, especially for improving language skills.
Will try to get some of the books from the link you have provided. Thanks a lot for sharing.

[tisha]

csc:

Some of my after-thots


If there is passion and love for writing ,one will tend to write well. Writing needs to have a purpose - and not just for exams . The child takes pride in his writing and experiences immense satisfaction from it.

The key to reading is for pleasure ultimately and linguistic skills are just picked up along the way. There is no need to get the child to read beyond his level. It is a natural process. Parents can interfere to ensure that the child read widely ( focus on width and not depth) - books of different interests and topics, newspapers , magazines etc

Well, home environment and maybe 'genes' do play a part in honing the writing skills. In a home where reading and writing is frequent and done naturally, the child will grow to love reading and writing naturally.

Enjoying the process beats the end result. The end result should be a love for reading and writing for a life time and not merely a distinction in English during exams

:goodpost:
Agree with you.
But to improve the English Marks, parents need to intervene a bit in the child's reading I think.

[pixiedust]

chamonix, thanks your reply, I am seeing some light.

This is now a more balanced debate.

btw, I am also a SGarden fan (re: your avatar).

[jasmineong]

chamonix:

Hi jasmineong,

Thanks for shedding more light on TAS.

Sigh, he will probably need some creative writing classes to adjust himself to the topics and writing styles required by the Singapore Education System when we return to Sg. (We are currently residing overseas.)

Besides that, I also hope that the classes will help a little in igniting his passion for writing. He only puts in effort on topics he find interesting. But for topics that he finds boring, his writing couldn't be more bland.

But most importantly, I am keeping a lookout for centres or teachers/tutors/books that will highlight and bring out the magic in writing to kids.

Hi chamonix,

When will you be coming back? Actually if your boy writes so well, I think he needs to just attend a few classes and should be on track for our education system.

I dont know about the magic of writing because my son was never a good writer and even for interesting topics, he could not write well. So I found in TAS the 'magic' he needed. He is now starting to read storybooks, he will read the storybooks the teacher at TAS lends out because he will get points if he reads and when he returns the book, the teacher will asks him qns on the book so he says he must finish reading and in doing so, he ends up actually being hooked in the book. I think it is a clever way to get the children to start reading.

He now enjoys writing and can write reasonably well. Memorisation helps a lot as he had no input before but now with the memory input for key parts, he can write well and he enjoys the writing lessons as he now understands the techniques good writers use and can use them himself. In the past, he would just say my friends in school write better but I also dont know how to do it. The teacher just ask me to read their compos but after reading I still dont know how to write well. But now the teacher at TAS highlights the strategies used-like repetition for impact, personification, metaphors, use of short sentences for impact. and he is intrigued by these methods and hence he is picking up quite fast now.

I have not found centres that teach writing like this so for me TAS is THE centre to go for writing but I know of well-known centres like Learning Lab, Mindstretcher that also teach writing just that they have different methods that could work for your son. Maybe you could get your son to start writing and ask some teacher here to help grade or something or give suggestions (if you know of any)

[csc]

pixiedust:

chamonix, thanks your reply, I am seeing some light.

This is now a more balanced debate.

It was never meant to be a debate in any way

There was no intention to discredit any writing programs mentioned.

Just sharing of personal experiences and alternative ways of doing things

[csc]

Read the quotes below somewhere.


“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.\"

“Strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterations that weaken the strength of a sentence.”