Breaking Ground: Teachers Relate Reading and Writing in the Elementary School

• Main Author: Hansen, Jane, Ed
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Heinemann Educational Books, Inc 1985
• Subjects: Beginning Reading; Early Reading; Elementary Education; Independent Reading; Individualized Reading; Junior High Schools; Reading Improvement; Reading Instruction; Reading Skills; Reading Writing Relationship; Student Motivation; Writing Instruction; Writing Skills
• ISBN: 9780435082192; 0435082191

Intended for reading teachers, this book of articles about reading and writing was written by teachers who intended to ask new questions about reading instruction. It bases its practice on a teaching philosophy in which teachers expect their students to work together, not segregated into proficiency groups. The first section contains articles about teaching young children to read and write and includes the following methods of instruction: letting children "improve" stories by changing or combining them, using children's writing as the beginning impetus and primary instrument for their instruction in learning to read, and using reading to monitor writing. The second section focuses on extending writing across the curriculum, fostering an appreciation of the role of reading in early writing, developing basic skills, immersion in reading about history as preparation for writing, and the simultaneous development of reading and writing skills of migrant children. The third section deals with the concern for the inner life, the power and play of fiction, and interviewing. In the fourth section, general principles discussed include developing the language facility of children by eliminating the separation between reading and writing, ways to encourage self direction in reading, teaching skills, and the reader's audience. (EL)