Make Reading & Writing in English Easy

Reading Horror Stories

Nothing beats a good old-fashioned horror story when it comes to getting students to write stories that keep readers or listeners on their toes. This lesson stimulates students’ desire to read horror stories while helping them understand story structure and develop critical thinking skills.

All students can ask at least a few questions about this horror story and its characters. It’s not necessary for every student to have completely different questions, but a few variations will help keep everyone interested. Prepare questions using vocabulary you may currently focus on or help your students ask questions on specific topics, such as food, transportation, reading books, hobbies, and more. Start by writing the relevant topic on the whiteboard. Engage with your students in areas of interest in their personal, professional and academic lives.

Also, view website to empower your child to take control over letters and sounds for a better reading experience. 

Students Learn to Write by Writing

Students learn to read and have the opportunity to learn what others have written, which will ultimately help them create their own essays. Students learn to write by writing, which gives them the confidence that they can continue to write and continue to develop their skills. The education of some of these students is almost exclusively focused on teaching lower-level writing skills such as handwriting and spelling, with little opportunity for actually writing.

Such students can fall victim to misunderstandings, a problem that becomes more apparent in high school. Many students still think their poor writing is due to poor grammar and language skills.

Yes, many high school students can write in their native language, but they quickly get tired of writing for audiences that don’t exist because most teachers don’t look for a translator every day to translate their work for them. I also started teaching many high school students how to write simple sentence structures in the same language as soon as they arrived.

Students Rely on their Teachers for Guidance

My research shows that our students have no reading habits, rely on their teachers for guidance, or in other words, they are indoctrinated, too lazy to think analytically or critically to make their writing interesting or original. English teachers in the sample were least likely to say that digital tools increase the likelihood that students will shorten their writing, use poor spelling or grammar, or type too quickly and sloppily.

Despite lengthy focus group discussions about the benefits of teaching writing to diverse audiences in today’s digital ecology, only 24% of AP and NWP teachers surveyed believe that digital tools make today’s students more likely to write in a variety of genres and styles. Maths (64%) and English/Landscapes (60%) teachers are more likely than science (53%) and history/sociology (48%) teachers to believe that digital tools are on the rise. Making student papers available to a wide audience through online platforms is a major change from the time when only the teacher and perhaps a few classmates read student papers.

I think this generation of students not only has more opportunities to write (in many forms) and learn to express themselves, but the added benefit that social media and Google Docs can provide is to provide them with an audience for those ideas and expressions. Learning to write so people can listen is a powerful skill that I hope everyone can acquire. Here you’ll find our complete guide to writing novels and short stories, which you and your students must read before thinking about writing your next bestseller.

Practice Using Story Cards

Once you have a solid understanding of story elements, it’s time for your students to use them to become story makers and write great stories. Practice using story cards will allow students to develop the ability to instinctively and effectively summarize the characters, settings, themes, etc. of any reading material. Finally, regarding reading, students will be able to identify story elements in a natural way without the help of a story map or any graphic organizer, although this option will always remain for those who need it. Additional support provided by the story map. Giving students a copy of the word list can help them choose meaningful words, sound effects (think Ontomontopeia), and colorful verbs to add to their writing.

The Fear of Writing Among Students

Students in the modern education system generally dislike and/or shy away from the writing process. Add to that other fears, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that writing is one of the scariest things we ask students to do in school.

This fear factor is why one of our most important tasks for writing teachers is to find ways to mitigate these fears as much as possible. As teachers, we probably see many students whose fears act as a brake on them from really trying. Most of our students probably face these same fears, and many of them likely face other fears, ranging from worry that they are not on par with their classmates to worry that making mistakes can lead to lower their assessments, to the general fears that arise from a previous bad experience writing papers for school.

When students with learning disabilities find their assignments filled with red pen teacher comments and corrections, they become less motivated to write. Students with learning disabilities, even those who are good readers, often present short and/or hard-to-read written papers. My students blog, which means that students “post” various types of texts on a public site where anyone can read and comment on their work.

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