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In order to master a language, we need to understand their native speakers and also to
make ourselves understood. This involves being able both to encode (speaking and writing)
and decode (listening and reading) oral and written messages. Therefore, in order to
Since the 1970’s, the belief that language is a means of communication has inspired a new
approach in English teaching: the Communicative Approach. Due to its influence, nowadays
language is taught and learnt in a very practical way in the classroom and now our students
Based on this view, the present essay aims to study the process of learning to read and
write in both first and FL. For this purpose, I will divide the topic into three main
sections.
In the first part, I will present the notion of the four basic skills of language,
highlighting those related to written language. In the second part, I will analyse how
reading and writing is learnt in the first language, examining reading and writing teaching
methods, skills and stages. In the third part, I will deal with how to read and write in a FL.
To do so, I will first study the reading skill, considering the main strategies and stages to
achieve global and specific reading comprehension. Then I will analyse the writing skill,
centring the essay on the strategies and activities needed to go from a controlled practice
We deal with an essential topic since successful communication depends on the mastery
of the four linguistic skills. In addition, the FL Curriculum for Primary Education highlights
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the significance of this topic by including in its objectives, blocks of contents and
assessment criteria the development of reading and writing with a communicative purpose.
FIRST
Let me start developing the first part of this topic by establishing a distinction between
the four basic skills of language. In order to use a language effectively, we need to
combine different abilities or skills. We can identify four major skills when using a
Harmer, these major skills can be classified according to the medium and the activity of
the speaker. Speaking and listening are said to relate to language expressed through the
aural medium whereas reading and writing are said to relate to language expressed through
the visual medium. If we classify these skills according to the activity of the participants,
speaking and writing are said to be productive skills since they demand some kind of
production on the part of the language user, whereas listening and reading are receptive
skills, since the language user is receiving oral or written language. In this topic, I will
concentrate on the skills that are part of the visual or written medium. To do so, I will
start by addressing briefly what the main features of written language are:
3. Lack of visual contact between the writer and the reader means that
participants cannot rely on extralinguistic clues such as gestures to make their meaning
clear.
and several aspects of punctuation, which make it more difficult to learn than oral
language.
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Learning to read and write is one of the most important and powerful achievements in
life. Learning a FL is a natural process, very similar to learning a first language because
learners generally proceed from listening and comprehending to speaking and eventually to
According to the Communicative Approach, the four skills must be worked on at the same
time, but not to the same extent. Reading and writing are abstract activities, and children
are not mature enough to deal with abstract concepts. Therefore, they must be reached at
the end of Primary Education and this is why The Organic Law of Improvement on
Education 8/2013 (LOMCE) passed on December 9th has kept this in mind and emphasizes
SECOND
Next, I will develop the second part of this topic by analysing how learning to read and
write is carried out in first language acquisition . When children arrive at school, they
experience a different linguistic world. They must use more frequently language to express
ideas and facts and they also have to learn new skills, that is, reading and writing. In what
follows, I will focus on the development of these skills separately. To do so, I will begin
analysing the different reading teaching methods in a first language. Let us examine
them:
Firstly, phonic approaches are based on the principle of identifying the regular sound-
letter relationships in a writing system and teaching the child to use these to construct or
decode words.
recognising individual words as wholes, without breaking them into individual letters.
Lastly, reading teaching methods that focus on subskills are based on teaching different
kinds of skills and subskills. In recent years, this has been the most popular method.
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After having established the different reading teaching methods, lets concentrate now
on how students learn to write in their first language. To do so, it is essential to consider
Firstly, students go through a preparatory stage, when basic motor skills develop and the
Secondly, there is a consolidation stage, around the 7th year, when children begin to use
the writing system to express what they can already say in speech.
Thirdly, there is a differentiation stage, around the 9th year, in which writing begins to
diverge from speech and develop its own pattern and organization.
Finally, an integration phase takes place. This occurs when writers have a good command
of language and they can vary their stylistic choices on purpose and develop a personal
“voice”.
Moreover, learning to write involves different skills, which are motor, functional and
linguistic. Motor skills, because the writer needs to distinguish sequences of letters,
shapes, sizes, words, spaces, etc.; functional skills, because according to his purpose, the
writer has to use the most appropriate writing style which can be expressive (feelings),
because the writer needs to develop the ability to use the structures of the language in an
THIRD
Once reading and writing in the first language have been considered, I will focus on the
third part of the topic, that is, how to read and write in a FL. For this purpose, I will study
first the reading skill, considering the main strategies to develop global and specific
reading comprehension as well as its stages and the activities intended to develop this skill.
Next, I will examine writing, and the strategies and activities needed to go from a
controlled practice stage to a free production stage. Finally, I will address the main
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Let me start with the reading skill. Reading can be defined as an interactive process that
Reading must be introduced after students have some basic knowledge of the spoken
1. Look and say (picture + word): Teachers often use ‘look and say’ as part of vocabulary
teaching, so when children learn to say a new word, they learn to read it. The teacher
can help children with whole word recognition by decorating the classroom with
functional print: posters, words of songs, signs, labels, questions written in English...
2. Phonics: According to this approach, it’s advisable not to teach the names of the
letters when starting to teach reading, as some of the letters of the English alphabet
don’t match the sounds of the language. The teacher must teach the way in which letters
Reading comprehension is a receptive skill and therefore shares common features with
listening. The main common feature is that reading is an active process in which the
meaning of graphs should be decoded so the student must develop some reading
strategies. In other words, teachers can help their students to become effective readers
by teaching them how to use strategies before, during and after reading. We can
Previewing: reviewing the text to get a sense of the structure and content.
Skimming and scanning: Skimming consists of reading a text to get a general idea,
while scanning consists of extracting specific information from the text while
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Guessing from context: Using the prior knowledge to deduce the meaning of
unfamiliar words.
These reading strategies should be used appropriately depending on the reading stage
the student is at. Now I will describe the main stages in reading activities, which are:
students the knowledge, clarify, make students aware of the type of the text and the
purpose reading and motivate them. E.g. using the title, predict content, looking at
pictures, skimming to find the main idea, brainstorming. The main aim during this stage
The teacher gives the students points to search for: getting the general idea of the
text or specific information. The first case is called extensive reading; the other is
information, answering questions and chart filling. The main aim during this stage is to
develop the skills of skimming, scanning and inferring meaning from context.
- As for the post-reading stage, a follow-up work can be considered. The main
aims are to internalize the language of the text and to integrate skills. Integrating
skills promotes the learning of real content and is highly motivating for students.
According to Donn Byrne, in order to integrate the language skills in the classroom
because they offer many opportunities for listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Some activities in which skills are integrated are project work, role-play or dictations.
Once reading in a FL has been considered, I will focus on how to write in a FL.
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arranged according to certain conventions . It is the most difficult of the four skills
because it demands a higher level of correction and it is different from oral language.
For a large part of the society, writing is not an everyday activity. However,
teaching the writing skill in the English classroom is essential because it is a support
for oral language, it increases the time of exposure to the FL and it is usually needed
for testing.
graphic skills, that is writing words correctly including aspects such as capitalization,
punctuation and spelling; grammatical skills, the ability to use a variety of sentence
patterns and constructions; stylistic skills, the ability to express precise meaning in a
variety of styles and registers; rethorical skills ,the ability to use cohesion devices in
order to link parts of a text; organisational skills, writing ideas with coherence and
acquire. For that reason, in Primary Education it should be done in a guided way. The
strategies that a student should learn are, among others, writing words and
In the early stages of learning English, students will generally write very little.
Moreover, the youngest ones may be still coping with some features of the writing
different writing demands which we may find in our classroom and the different
spend most time completing tightly controlled written exercises to practice their
dictations. Like many teaching techniques that go out of fashion for a while, dictation
is making a comeback, especially due to the revision undertaken by Paul Davis and
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Mariano Rinvolucri, who looked at the subject and found dynamic alternatives to the
students will also be encouraged to produce free writing, although they will need a lot
of support.
- Copying: students copy material provided by the teacher: texts, sentences, etc.
sentence structure and it also helps them to retain words. Some examples of
- Practice:
Finally, if we want our students to write fluently, they will have to learn
how to write paragraphs. This is commonly done by providing a model from which
to work, e.g. our students see a text and then use it as a basis for their own
this level, this skill will demand sentence, text structure, organization of ideas…
According to Jeremy Harmer, at this stage, we can distinguish six different types
of communicative activities:
task and they have to get another group to perform the same task by giving them
written instructions.
Exchanging letters: one student writes a letter to another one and then
receives a reply.
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Writing games: students can write descriptions of famous people or places.
Then they have to read it aloud and the rest of the class has to guess it.
they must put together with other students to write a coherent narration.
Many teachers are over worried about mistakes and the result is usually a paper
information. Apart from this, the student gets a negative interpretation of his
especially if we know how to involve the student into his own process of learning.
effective and where it was not. According to Donn Byrne, we can follow four main
correction procedures:
Firstly, correcting all the mistakes. This is very time consuming for the teacher
and discouraging for the student. There is too much teaching involved but very
little learning.
some areas because students need help in those areas or the teacher finds it
Thirdly, indicating mistakes so that students can correct them involves the
teacher using for instance symbols to indicate where the mistake is (sp=spelling,
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Finally, letting the students identify and correct their own mistakes . Students
Conclusion
To conclude, I would like to remark that, as I have proven in this essay, the
oral language.
the production stages are closely linked. Therefore, teachers should gradually
train students from global to specific comprehension when reading texts and
In this topic, I have started by presenting the notion of the four basic skills of
language, focusing on those related to written language and its main features.
Then I have analysed how reading and writing is learnt in the first language,
considering some teaching methods. Finally, I have examined how to read and
write in the FL, paying attention to the main strategies and stages involved in
these processes.
In order to develop this topic, the following bibliography has been used:
English.
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LARSEN-FREEMAN, D. (2003): Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching .
VARELA, R. et al. (2003): All About Teaching English. Centro de Estudios Ramón
Areces.
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