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Analyse the ways in which shared and guided work scaffold's learning, supporting the move towards independence in writing.
According to Piaget (1962), children's literacy develops cognitively, within a literate environment, including other literate beings. Children assimilate new information, ie, learns, through interaction and imitation
Based on Vygotsky's (1978) theory that language acquisition and development is achieved through socialisation, scaffolding is defined as: temporary support or assistance, provided by someone more capable, that permits a learner to perform a complex task or process that he or she would be unable to do alone.
In the classroom, scaffolding, constructed by teachers and peers through shared and guided work, provides interaction and support vital to achieve independence in writing.
Research has shown that shard work can help to stimulate children's ideas and give them a more focused approach individual-to-individual writing. Activities such as brainstorming and class discussion have been shown to help learners to group their ideas and clarify the ways in which they can personally respond to writing tasks. Referring to such experiments, Czerniewska (1992), says:
Talking, sharing and seeing the writing techniques modelled by the teacher were central to the work. And the strategies seemed to pay off in the children's writing, which seemed to explore better the possibilities of the subject and to 'give greater scope for personal response'.
Literacy Hours, part of the National Literacy Strategy, involves working with the whole class for the majority of the allocated time. An example could be the teacher reading a load a story, while encouraging the children to interact, by asking questions and promoting class discussion. This maximises participation and allows learners to be challenged at different levels. By praising individual contributions, a supportive environment is created, raising expectations and self-esteem, particularly among lower-achievers. It is also beneficial for more able learners. According to the guidance notes for the National Literacy Strategy:
By tailoring questions and inviting contributions at more challenging levels, teachers in the National Literacy Project expected more able children to be able to explain and justify their ideas, to make generalisations, generate hypotheses, and offer critical comments. All this, in a class situation, challenged the able while keeping within contexts that lower attainers could understand and in which they could participate.
Shared work can be seen as giving each individual learner more control over the writing process. They are encouraged to come up with their own ideas, as well as to evaluate those of others'. This increased power, or 'ownership' can help instil confidence in the learners' about their own abilities and set a precedent for the children's independent work.
Shared activities when working in smaller groups, independently, eg, collaborating in groups to answer questions or produce a story, allows learners to consolidate and apply new learning more independently.
However, one needs to take into account that differences between learners will have an impact on the way children are influenced by such shared activities.
As, according to Piaget, children learn through imitation, by grouping or pairing children of different abilities can benefit lower-achieving learners, by at least exposing them to higher standards, eg, by witnessing the way others plan their ideas or structure their sentences in a group story-writing task, or by reading someone else's composition and picking up the way grammatical structure is used or the way certain vocabulary is used to express an opinion.
However, it is also essential to have high expectation of the children in order to extend those of higher ability.
If children know they are sharing their work with others, it can give them a more powerful sense of audience, rather than just writing 'for the teacher'. According to Czerniewska, referring to collaborative work:
Children writing in such classrooms see writing not as an isolated task but as a joint venture in which other children can provide ideas, support and adviceIf a child knows that what he is writing id going to interest and entertain others, he will be more careful with its presentation.
It is essential for teachers to evaluate learners' progress and change grouping arrangements if they are not proving to be effective.
Shared work can be particularly beneficial if it involves peer assessment. This can involve working with a partner, or as a group in activities such as marking one another's work, or making suggestions for how it could be improved.
This can encourage children to be more reflective and make writing seem more purposeful. Children can be more receptive to criticism received from peers, if not necessarily more welcoming:
Children often take for granted that teachers will be critical and want improvement, but when peers or outsiders are critical, conflicts can emerge in the child's mind that need to be thought and acted upon.
Differing ability is not the only factor that has an impact on approaches to teaching and learning.
Different genders have different interests, for example, and this is notable in the kind of literature they choose to read or, indeed, if they are interested in reading at all:
It is boys who are shown to be at a greater disadvantage in the reading curriculum not only do they read fewer books, but their favoured genres are less in harmony with the English curriculum and the choices made for them in class by their teachers.
If a child is not engaged by a text and does not see any purpose in it, they are less likely to benefit from the shared activity and are therefore at a disadvantage:
As long as children see print as purposeless or nonsensical, they will find attention to print aversive and be bored.
According to Millard, boys not only read less, but read less narrative fiction, which means they will be less familiar with the kind of texts studied in the classroom and will therefore be less likely to be able to adapt their own writing style to that which the National Curriculum demands of them.
The fact that boys appear to falling behind girls in terms of achievement is a current cause of concern in education. To address this issue, teachers could ensure activities are balanced to include materials whose interests appeal to as wider range as possible, as well as involving all pupils in choices of text, where this is possible.
According to Perera, for children learning a second language (L2), interaction with native speakers is fundamental and leads to linguistic independence:
Learners' speech is obtained through the learners' participation and socialisation in the L2 society, from which individuality and creativity is developed. Linguistic development is thought to be a transformation from someone else's speech to one's own speech.
While guided work can help lay down the fundamentals of written English, shared work (whether the language is heard spoken in context, or the writing of peers is witnessed) is therefore vital to develop and strengthen literacy skills. The National Literacy Strategy recommends a warm-up session prior to introducing a new shared text, to discuss key themes and ideas and allow maximum access to the text. Relevant visual aids are also suggested, along with some additional explanation of key concepts in the learners' first language, to aid comprehension.
There are also sociological and cultural differences between children, which can affect their attitudes towards reading, and writing, including how they are introduced to reading at home. The support learners receive from their families plays a crucial part in learners' attitude to literacy (as well as other aspects of learning) and their individual development in this area:
Parents act as powerful models of literacy users for their children and not only provide them with their first books and materials for writing, but also represent for them what it is to use literacy effectively and how to be literate.
Pupils with special educational needs, in particular, may require a greater amount of guided support, as well as taking part in shared work.
The issue of inclusion can perhaps be addressed more closely and effectively through guided work. Guided work, in this context guided writing, allows the teacher to scaffold the children's learning and outcomes. Teachers can differentiate and tailor work to meet needs more specifically and individual goals can be set, allowing the learner more chance to achieve their potential.
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Guided work allows the teacher to give instant feedback, useful in identify and rectifying problem areas and this immediacy of communication works both ways. Children have the opportunity to ask questions and express concerns as they arise, while teachers are able to offer criticism, explanation and praise in a context when it is most relevant to the learner.
Teachers must strike balance between the time spent on shared and guided work, addressing the needs of children with differing abilities and accommodating those with special educational needs, those for whom English is not a first language and talking into account gender, cultural and sociological differences
Bibliography
Czerniewska, P. (1992). Learning about writing. Oxford: Blackwell.
Millard, E. (1997). Differently literate: boys, girls and the schooling of literacy. London: Routledge Falmer
Office for Standards in Education (1998). The National Literacy Strategy: additional Guidance. London: Ofsted.
Peregoy, S. (1999). Multiple embedded scaffolds: support for English speakers in a two-way Spanish immersion kindergarten. Bilingual Research Journal.
Perera, N. S. (2001). The role of prefabricated language in young children's second language acquisition. Bilingual Research Journal.
Piaget, J. (1962). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Smith, F (1983). Essays into literacy: selected papers and some afterthoughts. London: Heinemann educational.
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