What children in my school and my local secondary school think about reading and writing stories Chenice Hadfield aged 10

Introduction My topic is reading and writing stories. I enjoy reading and writing stories and want to become a writer when I am older. I wanted to find out what local children my age and teenagers think about reading and writing stories and why they have stopped doing it if they have.

Research on reading and writing There has been lots and lots of research about reading and writing. There’s too much to include here. But I can give some examples.

Other Research ( 1 ) Research with six year 5 classes in five London primary school. Found out how if it would affect children's writing if they read difficult stories in class. It was the teachers reading aloud that had most effect on the children's writing because the children could hear how the story sounded. This helped the children to write their stories because they started to use the language that authors use and to write different styles. All of the children’s writing improved. ( The Reader in the Writer available online at: )

Other Research ( 2 ) It is not just reading that helps you write. Other things include talking about writing, drama, role play and writing together. (Overviews of Research on Writing. Available online at: ) Objects to give children ideas, writing together and having lots of time also help children get better at writing. (‘An exploration of how creative writing can be improved in a Year 5 class’. Available online at: %20Katy%20Blake.pdf ) %20Katy%20Blake.pdf

My research questions are:

How does reading stories help you to write stories? Do people prefer to write stories at school or at home? Why do people prefer to write stories at school or at home?

How I chose my sample I wanted to collect data from local children and teenagers to see what they thought about reading and writing stories. I gave out questionnaires to Year 4 and Year 6 in my school and Year 8 and Year 10 in a local secondary school.

Methods I chose to do a questionnaire because I wanted to collect data from lots of children and teenagers. I wouldn’t have been able to interview that many people and it wouldn’t have been easy for me to go into the secondary school. An adult took my questionnaires into the secondary school for me.

Data analysis Some of the questions on my questionnaires are closed and some of them are open. I tallied the answers of the closed questions. I sorted the answers of the open questions by coding them into categories. I didn’t know how to use a spreadsheet so I got an adult to help me put my results into Microsoft Excel. We used the spreadsheet for my pie charts and bar charts.

Ethics (1) I had to think carefully about not hurting other people’s feelings. I didn’t want people to give me their names so they could be anonymous. I had to promise that everything that I was told would stay private. I promised that I would keep the completed sheets in a safe place so no-one would take a look at them. At the end of my project I’ll destroy them.

Ethics (2) This is what I wrote at the beginning of my questionnaire: Hello. My name is Chenice. I’m ten years old and I want to find out what children and teenagers think about reading and writing stories. Will you help me by completing my questionnaire please? You do not have to. It is your choice! Any information will not be told to anyone. It will remain anonymous and confidential. I will keep completed sheets in a safe place so no-one will have a look. After the project I will destroy the completed sheets.

Findings

How much does reading stories help you to write stories? Generally girls and boys as they get older think that reading stories helps you less to write stories.

How much do people like reading stories? As children get older they like reading stories less. This is the same for boys and girls. As girls get older they still enjoy reading stories but not as much as they did when they were younger. This doesn’t happen as much with the boys. Boys enjoy reading stories less than girls.

How much do people like writing stories? As girls and boys get older they like writing stories less. In year 4 nearly everyone likes writing stories a lot but in year 10 no-one likes writing stories a lot. This is almost the same for boys and girls.

How much do people like writing stories?

Why people think reading stories helps you to write stories

Why doesn’t reading stories help you to write stories? Not many children in my sample answered this question. Their answers included  don't like writing stories  better to use your own imagination  doesn’t give me ideas  depends what story it is  it’s boring

Do you prefer to write stories at school or at home? Most children prefer to write stories at school. But the boys in year 6 say that they like writing stories at home more than at school. The children in year 10 they like writing stories at school more than at home.

Do you prefer to write stories at school or at home?

 The 3 main reasons that children like writing stories at home better than school are More personal space. Too noisy at school. More time.  Being able to choose the topic is important too. Why people prefer to write stories at home

Why people prefer to write stories at school The 3 main reasons that children like writing stories at school better than home are  Lots of help and everything that you need  Better environment (for concentrating )  No choice!

Why people prefer to write stories at school

If you have stopped writing stories at home why did you stop? All of the age groups gave boring/don’t like writing stories as the main reason. This increased as the students get older. The children in years 4 and 6 did not give the answer too busy/other things to do but years 8 and 10 gave it as the second most important reason. In year 4 and 6 taking too long was an important reason and in year 4 bad at spelling was important too.

If you have stopped writing stories at home why did you stop?

Discussion and Conclusion

I got lots of questionnaires back and roughly the same number from each year. But as the children got older they didn’t answer so many questions and some of the answers were silly. If I had done any interviews I would of got more information because you would be talking to a person not just looking at the answers on a piece of paper. It would have been useful to find out more about why as the children get older their ideas changed. So if I did my research again I would have done some interviews.

The other research that I looked at said listening to stories helped the children because they started to use the language that authors use and to write different styles. My research found that the 2 main reasons for why the children think reading stories helps them to write stories are it increases vocabulary and gives them ideas about stories and style. So my research agreed with the other research.

I found that one of the main reasons for why people prefer to write stories at home is more time. The other research also said having lots of time also helps children get better at writing.

My research showed that the main reason for why people prefer to write stories at school was they get lots of help and everything that they need. The other research said that writing together helped the children to get better at writing stories.

I am happy about my research because I have got answers to my research questions. I like writing stories at school and at home for different reasons. For example :  I find it quieter at school because you have no choice to be quiet.  I like writing stories at home because you have more time. So I found the answers that I got interesting.