Students’ strategies and competence in writing compositions maribel Fontiveros-Malana, Ph. D

When will children need to think about the purpose of writing?

Your children will need to think about the purpose of different texts at all stages of their school life, and even into adulthood. Luckily, a lot of children's knowledge about writing purposes forms naturally - a four year-old is likely to be able to tell you that their favourite story book is funny and entertaining. This is a very early indication that they understand the purpose of the text.
In school, children will discuss the author's purpose often - both in texts they are reading, and ones they have written themselves. And this extends beyond just English lessons. If your child is writing a fact-file in science, it is important that they understand that it must be strictly informative - there's no room for their personal opinions.

Thinking about writer's purpose when reading texts

When children learn to consider the purpose of writing, they might start by looking at other texts people have written. Can they identify the reason why this text was written? How do they know? Here are a couple of ideas to help get them thinking:

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  Introduce your primary school children to lots of different genres and formats of texts - soon enough they'll learn the common purpose of each.
  
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  Even if it's not the focus of the lesson, ask your class to tell you the purpose of any text they encounter. This will help to keep author's purpose at the front of their minds.
  
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  When showing your class a texts, ask them for their initial guesses - often their instincts are correct on this!
  
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  Take a deeper dive into each different purpose of writing - entertaining, informing, persuading, or expressing feelings. Look at the common features and language conventions used in each.
  
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  Analyse texts as a class - print off an example of a great persuasive piece, and get your class to highlight features that help its purpose.