Helping Children To Read Their Own Work

Coherence is important in a piece of writing, but the term is abstract unless teachers actually show children what they maen. I find it very important to show children how to read their own work. It is very interesting to hear that children spend 95% of their time alone with their papers before we even see them. As a future educator, I believe we need to do more in order to assist children in improving as their own first readers. I would begin by first conducting a short mini-lesson as a review of reading the world. Then, I would move on to additinal mini-lessons on how to review a text in relation to my first reading. I can also create another mini-lesson in which I can show children how to decide the one thing an individual's piece of writing is about. This can also be done to show students how to find the subject of a piece in text. Also, it would be beneficial for students to look for a line that tells what the piece is about. A skill that may be more difficult for others consists of rereading a sentence that tells what the piece is about and then finding the one or two sentences that have the least do with the main purpose. I personally even struggle with deleting what is not needed. Many people tend to believe that the longer the piece of writing, the better it is which is not always the case. Unfortunately, children are often told to focus on "writing better," when really they should be shown how to read their work using actual texts. I believe students need to know where their best section, strongest line, or best use of language is in their piece of writing. We must show them how to reread their work, especially if we are allowing them to choose their topics, write about what they know, and share their passions with us. Our goal as future educators should be to assist children in becoming better readers and more independent writers.