Remedial and Enrichment Activities for Developing Writing Skills

Remedial Activities

Remedial activities are meant to help struggling young learners overcome their writing difficulties. The instruction for struggling students needs to begin as soon as difficulties emerge.

What are the advantages of remedial activities? 

Learning Basic Skills

Students who do not have basic math and reading skills will benefit from attention to remedial activities in the classroom. Using phonics, Dolch words or basic multiplication tables as teaching tools will give students the basic skills they need to advance to a higher academic level.

Reinforcement

• Students who have been out of school over summer, winter or spring breaks may benefit from remedial teaching over a week or more to reinforce skills they lost due to extended time away from school. Teachers might use flashcards, games or fun activities involving phonics and basic math to help students get back on the learning path.

Help for Dyslexia

• According to research from Carnegie Mellon University, remedial reading instruction can help students with dyslexia overcome their reading difficulties by helping to rewire brain connections. The study, published in the August 2008 issue of the journal "Neuropsychologia," showed that 100 hours of remedial instruction is enough to help students with reading deficits related to dyslexia increase neural connections and increase reading proficiency over the long term.

Communication Skills

• Students who suffer from speech disorders may have trouble with communication in the classroom. Speech disorders are often developmental and may respond to remedial reading instruction. Teaching reading using phonics and sounding-out activities may help students with communication issues from speech-related problems become more academically proficient.

Behaviour and Motivation

• Students who fall behind due to the inability to perform even the most basic tasks in the classroom may develop behaviour problems because of their frustration levels. This can also lead to a lack of motivation and the desire to give up altogether. Teaching remedial activities will help students gain general knowledge that can be applied to all subject areas and help reduce feelings of inadequacy that lead to behaviour or motivation issues.

  
  

  Enrichment activities? 

Advanced level learners need to develop a greater understanding of genres and the place of writing in particular discourse communities. They also need to develop their strategies and establish their own voice in the second language.

Advantages of Enrichment Activities? 

Active Learning

• Active learning is desirable because students retain more of the presented information when they figure it out themselves. Instead of a traditional lecture setting, where the teacher presents information and the students absorb it, active learners participate and the instructor acts as a guide and answers questions. Research indicates that students engaged in active learning retain and generalize the information better than their peers in traditional instruction. In addition, enrichment activities give children a chance to experiment with occupations and think about future career paths.

Multisensory Instruction

• Students acquire new information in a variety of ways, and most people have a preferred mode of learning. The primary modes of learning are visual, auditory and kinesthetic, also sometimes called tactile. Multisensory instruction engages multiple intelligences, is considered ideal for students with learning disabilities and is beneficial to their non-disabled peers as well.

Cross-Curricular Benefits

• Most classroom enrichment activities engage more than one subject area. This reinforces learning in language, mathematics, science, social studies and socialization skills. This teaching style is beneficial because it simulates real-world activities. In daily life, students encounter problems that require multiple areas of knowledge to solve. Teaching activities that mimic this give students practice drawing on their knowledge and applying it in multiple areas.

Examples

• Classroom enrichment activities can be as involved or as simple as the teacher's time and resources allow. Some teachers set up classroom centers that extend previous lessons. The centers have activities that student do independently, and often have further reading or audio and video presentations. Others hold science or social studies fairs where children participate in individual or group projects and present them to their peers. A class science experiment encourages students to act out and use the scientific method instead of just memorizing vocabulary about it. Enrichment activities do not have to be in the classroom -- a field trip to an active dig site can stimulate interest in archeology or paleontology.

Lesson Planning

Stages of a writing lesson 

1. Objectives and Goals

The lesson's objectives must be clearly defined and in lined with district and/or state educational standards.

2. Anticipatory Set

Before you dig into the meat of your lesson's instruction, set the stage for your students by tapping into their prior knowledge and giving the objectives a context.

3. Direct Instruction

When writing your lesson plan, this is the section where you explicitly delineate how you will present the lesson's concepts to your students.

4. Guided Practice

Under your supervision, the students are given a chance to practice and apply the skills you taught them through direct instruction.

5. Closure

In the Closure section, outline how you will wrap up the lesson by giving the lesson concepts further meaning for your students.

6. Independent Practice

Through homework assignments or other independent assignments, your students will demonstrate whether or not they absorbed the lesson's learning goals.

7. Required Materials and Equipment

Here, you determine what supplies are required to help your students achieve the stated lesson objectives.

8. Assessment and Follow-Up

The lesson doesn't end after your students complete a worksheet. The assessment section is one of the most important parts of all.

Planning for Teaching Writing

Interpreting the Writing Skills in the Syllabus – KSSR English Syllabus

The approach adopted in the Standard-based curriculum is underpinned by the following principles:

-    Back to basics - It is essential for teachers to begin with basic literacy skills in order to build a strong foundation of language skills. The strategy of phonics is introduced in order to help learners begin to read and a good foundation in penmanship will help pupils acquire good handwriting.

-       Learning is fun, meaningful and purposeful. Lessons, which emphasize meaningful contexts and the integration of language skills, allow learners to learn by doing fun-filled activities. Contextualised as well as purposeful activities will promote the fun element in language learning.

-   Teaching is learner-centred so teaching approaches, lessons and curriculum materials must suit the differing needs and ability of pupils. It is important that appropriate activities and materials are used with pupils of different learning capabilities so that their full potential can be realized.

·         Integration of salient new technologies in line with growing globalisation. Technology is used extensively in our daily communication. Information available on the internet and other electronic media will be vital for knowledge acquisition. Networking facilities will be useful for pupils to communicate and share knowledge.

·         Assessment for learning includes continuous assessment as an integral part of learning which enables teachers to assess whether pupils have acquired the learning standards taught. Formative assessment is conducted as an on-going process, while summative assessment is conducted at the end of a particular unit or term.

·         Character-building is an important principle which needs to be inculcated through the curriculum to infuse character building. Lessons based on values have to be incorporated in teaching and learning in order to impart the importance of good values for the wholesome development of individuals.

Selecting and Preparing Activities for Teaching Different Levels of Writing Skills

Activities in a lesson plan should show connectedness and progress from easy to difficult - from modelled writing to independent writing. This is reflected in the way the curriculum specification is organised. For example with reference to Huraian Sukatan Pelajaran Year 4 KBSR (page 30) :

4.3 Match words to linear and non-linear representations

• Level 1 – 4.3.1 Match phrases to pictures

• Level 2 – 4.3.2 Match words to signs

• Level 3 – 4.3.3 Match words to other words

When planning for writing lesson, the flow of the lesson plan should begin with Level 1 before progressing into Level 2 and 3 for this particular matching exercise. This is to ensure learners are able to grasp proper understanding of the lesson and to successfully achieve intended objectives.

Grading and sequencing the writing lessons according to level of difficulty.

Teachers need to sequence their writing lessons in some logical order.

Basically, at the earliest levels, a lesson may involve providing multiple and varied context for practising handwriting and/or spelling, teaching and creating occasions for meaningful practice in punctuation, as well as providing occasions for using what language they have for real communication.

At later phases the writing lessons could focus on the process involved in producing a written document such as a letter or a story.

Assessing Writing Skill

First assessment strategy : 

Book response journals

~ Journals are places where individual students write a  short piece at regular intervals.

~ They are usually responded to by the teacher . 

Why have journal writing?

A journal entry can have any topic. If the main purpose is to discuss progress, then in a writing class the student could:

Some examples: 

Second assessment strategy :

Essay strategy: 

Definition

•         An essay is a writing sample in which a student constructs a response to a question, topic, or brief statement, and supplies supporting details or arguments.

•         The essay allows the teacher to assess the student's understanding and ability to analyse and synthesize information.

Provide Feedback

1. Establish a climate of trust and respect.

Remember, student egos are fragile. Feedback should be given to help, not hurt. Be encouraging. Remember, negativity creates defensiveness.

2. Don’t overwhelm students.

Limit feedback to the amount of information that the student can absorb. Identify the key areas that need additional work.

3. Keep comments impersonal.

Focus on specifics.

4. Refer back to your grading criteria.

5. Couch comments in “I” terms.

I got lost here. I’m confused—did you mean to say...?

6. Structure your comments as questions or suggestions, rather than as criticisms.

7. Rephrase the paper’s main points

If you take students’ ideas seriously, they will work harder to express them clearly.

8. Use questions to identify errors.

You might, for example, ask students for more information, or ask whether this is what they meant to say.

Selection & Adaptation of Materials and Activities - criteria for evaluation of material and task

•“Oh, this is a good textbook”

  or

•“Well, I don’t think my students will like this book”

What do these statements have in common?

•Evaluating materials (textbooks)

•What is the basis of these evaluations?

•Ad hoc / impression / intuition / classroom experience?

•Systematic evaluation?

•Normally we evaluate before we select materials

 

 Systematic material evaluation 

 

•An ideal systematic textbook evaluation would be a longitudinal one

•pre-use evaluation

•whilst-use evaluation

•post-use evaluation

•The core of systematic material evaluation is to examine how well a given material matches the needs of a language programme and how effectively and efficiently it can realise the objectives of the programme.

•Therefore needs analysis has to be done prior to textbook evaluation

•How can we evaluate suitability of materials?

•When they fulfill features of good materials

 

  Evaluating materials based on good features of the materials

 

Adapted from Tomlinson (1998):

1. Good materials should attract the students’ curiosity, interest and attention - materials should have novelty, variety, attractive layout, appealing content, etc

2. Materials should help students to feel at ease - layout of presentation, tasks and activities and texts and illustrations should all look friendly

3. Materials should help students to develop confidence -provide tasks or activities that students can cope with.

4. Materials should meet students’ needs – covers what is relevant and useful to what the students need to learn and what they want to learn.

5. Materials should expose the students to language in authentic use - authentic language are more motivating and challenging

6. Materials should provide the opportunities to use the target language for communicative purposes to the students.

7. Materials should take considered the positive effects of language teaching are usually delayed - important for materials (textbooks) to recycle instruction and to provide frequent and ample exposure to the instructed language features in communicative use.

8. Materials  should take into account that students differ in learning styles - provide a variety of  tasks and activities to cater for all students

9. Materials should take into account that students differ in affective factors - accommodate different attitudinal and motivational background as much as possible

10. Materials should maximise learning potential by encouraging intellectual, aesthetic and emotional involvement which stimulates both right and left brain activities - good Materials enable the students to receive, process and retain information through “multiple intelligences”.

 

•What kinds of materials can be used for writing activities?

1. Visual-based materials

•Pictures

•Clips / videos / films

2. Reading-based materials

•Reading texts

3. Auditory –based materials

•Listening texts

4. Combination of materials

•Visual auditory (clips, etc) / Pictures with texts (cartoon, etc)

 

Selection & Adaptation of Materials and Activities - Principles in Material Adaptation

• Relate your teaching materials to your objectives and aims.
• Make sure that you know what language is for. You should choose a material that your students can use effectively for their own purposes. Keep your learners’ needs in mind.
• Pay attention to the relationship between language, learning process and the learner.

Key Learner Variables

•Personality 

Personality affects the materials that we want to design.

Learners might be introverted or extroverted.

The material that we design should encourage even a shy student in the classroom.

 

•Motivation 

Highly motivated students learn faster and better.

As teachers, we should design activities that motivate our students.

 

•Attitude 

Learners can learn something in different ways.

The most important point is that we should satisfy our students’ needs by combining our experiences and their needs.

 

•Aptitude 

Some people seem more readily than others to learn another language.

•Preferred Learning Styles 

Some students might be more comfortable in a spoken language whereas others are more comfortable in written material.

 

•Intelligence

It has also an effect in learning a foreign or second language.

 

Selection & Adaptation of Materials and Activities - Factors to consider in material selection

1.Learners’ age and maturity level

• Younger students tend to have shorter attention spans. They cannot concentrate on one task for a long period of time.
• Older students (age) do not imply that they are mature. A person’s behaviour and cognition are reflected through his maturity level.  

 

 2. Learning Style

 
 3. Proficiency Level

Level 1	Preproduction	The learner does not understand or speak English with the exception of a few isolated words or expressions.
Level 2	Beginning/ Production	The learner speaks and understands conversational English with hesitancy & difficulty. The learner is at the pre-emergent/emergent level of reading & writing skills.
Level 3	Intermediate	The learner speaks & understands conversational & academic English with some amount of effort. The learner is post-emergent, developing both reading & writing skills.
Level 4	Advanced Intermediate	The learner speaks & understands conversational English without difficulty but displays some hesitancy in academic English. Able to read fluently & comprehend texts; needs assistance in writing tasks.
Level 5	Advanced	The learner speaks & understands conversational & academic English well. The learner is proficient in reading & writing skills, requiring only occasional support.