I don’t know how I would teach writing and grammar without free writes and dictée. Want to teach grammar? Use these two things. They are the most effective tools I know for teaching grammar quickly and efficiently, because they are interesting and meaningful to the kids.
February 13, 2008 at 11:43 pm
I know how to teach grammar with dictees; please explain how you do it with free writes. Thank you,
Anne
February 14, 2008 at 5:47 am
In dictation the kids self-correct their writing to reflect proper grammar. Of course this is not done in free writes, since they are never corrected.
My point is that when a child is forced to rely on the auditory patterns they have heard in stories as a basis for writing, without dictionaries (left brain) and relying solely on the sound of the language in their minds (right brain), then they are forced to, slowly over time, produce proper grammar in written form.
So we do not teach grammar per se with free writes. Rather, knowing that proper speech is proper grammar, when kids produce writing based on proper speech, their writing must then contain proper grammar. I am not talking here about teaching grammar TERMS, but real grammar, which is properly structured language.
Ben