Why is proofreading and self-editing so hard for kids, and how do we make it easier?
"Surprise, surprise! Most children simply don't get the whole editing thing. They like what they wrote and can't understand why you want them to - gasp - look for ways to improve it." Kim Kautzer.
Introducing Year One's EMERGENCY First Aid Kit for Writing
What would you do when confronted with the following writing?
Year One responded with:
"That is a massive word."
"You run out of breath before the end."
"There were no finger spaces."
"There are no capital letters or full stops." We decided that being a code breaker was really difficult for the reader when there were no spaces between words and no punctuation. We agreed that when we write, we really want others to read our writing, so we also need to be code breakers when we write.
We began the process of proofreading.
Spaces were added to the text, but it still didn't look right.
We used the tools in the Emergency Kit for Writing, to improve the punctuation of the sentence, with great success.
Students independently practised using the Emergency Kit for Writing to proofread given sentences.