Reason to Write : Help Your Child Succeed in School and Life Through Better Reasoning and Clear Communication, Elementary School Edition

by Douglas Reeves

• ISBN13: 9780743230452
• ISBN10: 0743230450
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-09-03
• Publisher: Kaplan Publishing

Summary

REASON to WRITE Elementary School Edition You can help your child: Read with greater understanding Improve in all academic areas Develop a sense of community and social responsibility Succeed on tests Award-winning author Dr. Douglas Reeves offers parents a simple, practical, and effective approach to helping children develop good writing skills. Through writing, children build thinking, reasoning, and communication skills that carry lifelong benefits. Reason to Write includes: An overview of the skills and knowledge your child should master at each grade level. A clear, simple system for evaluating your child's writing. An effective approach to identifying areas for improvement without discouraging your young writer. Stress-free tips for tackling writer's block. The top ten mistakes parents make when discussing writing - and how to avoid them. Dozens of ideas for writing activities your child will enjoy. FREE WRITING TOOLS ONLINE! Visit www.reasontowrite.com for brainstorming and organizational tools, writing tips, evaluation guides, and more.

Author Biography

Douglas B. Reeves, Ph.D. is President of the Center for Performance Assessment and the International Center for Educational Accountability. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including the 20-Minute Learning Connection series, which received a prestigious Parent's Choice Award. He works with parents, teachers, and school leaders throughout the world to raise student achievement and improve educational practices.

Table of Contents

Why Is Writing So Important?	1	(8)
Why Do Some Students Dislike Writing?	9	(4)
What Should My Child Know and Be Able to Do?	13	(5)
The Reading-Writing Connection	18	(12)
Writing for an Audience	30	(5)
Brainstorming: First Steps for Reluctant Students	35	(5)
Pre-Writing: Organizing Ideas	40	(20)
Handwriting or Word Processing?	60	(5)
How to Give Student Writers Encouraging Feedback	65	(12)
Writing Letters	77	(7)
Writing Descriptions	84	(4)
The Analytical Essay	88	(11)
The Persuasive Essay	99	(6)
The Research Paper	105	(20)
Creative Writing	125	(12)
The Top Ten Mistakes Parents Make	137	(6)
Writing for State Tests	143	(10)
Developing the Habit of Writing	153	(3)
Writing Tools	156	(3)
Putting This Book into Practice	159	(4)
Appendix A: California Writing Standards	163	(12)
Appendix B: State Writing Test Rubrics	175	(12)
Appendix C: States with Writing Tests	187	(6)
Appendix D: Selected Resources for Parents and Students	193

Excerpts

Chapter 1: Why Is Writing So Important? The schools our children attend today are different from those of a generation ago. The difference between our memories of elementary school and today's reality for our children can lead to conflicting emotions. On the one hand, we want our children to have more opportunities, better education, and a more sound preparation for the rigors of secondary school than we had. On the other hand, many parents occasionally wish that today's schools were more familiar, with a little less structure, fewer tests, and more fun.Never before have there been such high expectations for all children -- not just a few -- for greater performance in more academic areas. Many parents of children in elementary school today recall their own early experiences with writing as a series of creative stories and neatly stapled book reports, each returned with a smiley face and a letter grade, and perhaps an encouraging remark about our neat handwriting or our effort. In the general scheme of things, the importance of writing fell somewhere after reading and math, and the "rules" certainly seemed a lot fuzzier. Certain things were clear -- we had to begin our sentences with capital letters, and every sentence needed to end with a period or a question mark or an exclamation point -- but many things were not. What were the hallmarks of a "good" story? Why did the book report we worked so hard on only earn a B? Somehow we muddled through without ever really understanding the rules.The expectations for our children are very different. Creative stories are sandwiched between requirements for persuasive and analytical essays. Requirements for spelling, grammar, and punctuation are accompanied by demands for transitions, word choice, research, technology applications, and a consideration of the writer's audience. Because the expectations for performance are new, parents such as Barbara Simpson find a wide gulf between what she regards as acceptable school performance and what teachers, school districts, and state education officials have determined are the requirements for her daughter's success.Barbara enjoys the daily routine she calls "mining the backpack." After supper, she unzips Kristin's backpack and removes the day's papers, cookie crumbs, and messages to parents. Recently, along with the calendars and lunch menus, she found a form with the words KRISTIN ANNE SIMPSON -- STATE WRITING TEST REPORT emblazoned across the top in formal block type. Her eyes scanned the results. "What do they mean she is progressing?" Barbara asked herself. A fourth grader, Kristin, had always received A's and B's, and she particularly enjoyed writing. Now Barbara suspected that something was wrong. While the meaning of "progressing" was not clear from the report, she knew that it was not at all the same as "advanced" or "proficient." Barbara had never considered the possibility that Kristin was doing any less than what was expected of a fourth grader. Her desk was neat, her homework completed on time, and her parent-teacher conferences always full of good news. The messages were inconsistent, and Barbara knew that there were more state writing tests in the years ahead.This was not Barbara's first encounter with the new school requirements for writing. Last year, when Kristin's brother, Michael, was in the fifth grade, he brought home a science report that had corrections in spelling and punctuation. His social studies reports were graded not only for content, but also for written expression. "Why are they grading English in a science project?" she wondered. She recalled viewing with pride Michael's elaborate maps of Africa and his history timelines for his social studies classes, and then sharing his disappointment when his writing skills were part of his evaluation. Now in his first year of middle school, Michael is facing the same demands. "Writing across the curriculum," his teacher