The children listened, wrote, then sent their writing to me. Three weeks were topics to stimulate writing and the fourth week, we read over the air from every participating class. The kids were delighted to hear their work. This radio program continued for twenty years. After that, many teachers continued it in their classrooms, having taped the segments. Some still do!
The programs here are the ones to stimulate writing. Some are dated but many will never be out of date - such as "Tall Girl" and "I Laughed so Hard I Wet My Pants." I didn't steer away from hard topics: children even wrote on death and divorce.
These tapes are ideal for use in both current classrooms and home schooling. I urge the teacher or parent to realize that these are for the ideas and writing, not a sneaky way to teach spelling and grammar - and especially not the five-paragraph essay, which kills creative writing. Teachers told me about the value of this approach. A poor speller could have his excellent piece read on the air. A kid with terrible handwriting would get equal time and appreciation. Kids who often didn't succeed could be successful. The purpose is to have kids love to express themselves, and not be throttled by the "rules."
The list below represents over 72 hours of "Reading and Writing and Radio. These MP3 programs may be heard by clicking on the selection to open your preferred media player, or you may "Save Link As" to download the file for your use elsewhere. If you listen to or make use of any of these materials, we'd love to hear from you about it. Use the "Contact" menu selection to the left. |
