English and Literacies Learning How to Make Meaning in Primary Classrooms

This chapter stresses the importance of both teachers and learners as writers (Graves, 1983) as they create, either together or individually, a range of different texts for different purposes and become a community of writers. After considering a parent’s account of her daughter’s experience in learning to write, we look at how substantial dialogue always needs to underpin the development of writing. The interrelationship between speaking and writing is then considered using the mode continuum. We then explore the different aspects of learning to write within the teaching and learning framework, including the importance of building learners’ field knowledge, teacher modelling to break down the features of different kinds of texts, joint construction and independent writing. We use a range of examples of children’s writing to illustrate different kinds of texts and emphasise that creating texts can and should be enjoyable.