Reading as a Writer

Reading as a Writer provides a succinct overview of the whole process of teaching literacy, as it examines the links between reading and writing - an idea that is rooted and written into the new literacy framework. Writers internalize language patterns through constant reading and then redeploy these in their own writing, and this book explores this idea of ′writers as thieves′. Ideal for primary school teachers, the book helps them to develop the ability of reading as a writer - noticing how writers build suspense through isolating a character, using darkness, introducing unexpected sounds - offering important subject knowledge within different text types. This in turn enables them to build this skill within their pupils and to encourage them to behave as writers of narrative, poetry and fiction. Drawing on a rich range of examples of texts and children′s own writing, and offering practical teaching ideas, the book looks - underlying text patterns - building blocks (e.g. characterization, setting) - paragraph patterns - sentences and vocabulary - special effects. This book investigates what children can learn from reading texts with a ′writer′s mind′, and how they can then apply this knowledge to their own writing.