Everyone hears about it can be more difficult to motivate boys in the classroom. Well perhaps new-technologies are the answer! Follow the link to a great newspaper article about boys and blogs, where a UK primary school has found that blogs are the key to get boys writing. I also like the school's use of blogs for when the children are stuck at home for one reason or another.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/education/news/article.cfm?c_id=35&objectid=10705622
This is a great article. I can totally see this working in the classrooms. I was at an all boys school for prac and without generalising boys do seem to struggle with the fine motor skills and delicacy writing requires. Girls seem to take to it easily but it boys and neat writing never seems a natural fit, and I think this does see some boys develop a negative attitude towards a subject like literacy where writing is the basis. However let them construct things on a computer and they are away - you've hooked them. And like Mark said in our lectures the literacy skills are the same, they need to know sentence structure, paragraphs etc, but the medium is different.
ReplyDeleteThey still have to work on physical writing skills,(as its not a skill they can do without) but maybe they would be more inclined and enthusiastic to physically write if they knew not every single literacy lesson involved a skill they struggled with. It would maybe improve their attitude to the subject, and building a positive attitude towards learning has to be a good thing.
Thanks for the positive comment Jennie. It's great that you have some experience of boys and writing, so can see the real application of this. I agree that it is all about providing a diversity of mediums for students to play with (ie blogs as well as pen and paper) to keep children motivated, especially those troublesome boys!!
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