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Describing pictures is an important writing exercise for the students of primary level.
For this, the teacher presents a simple picture to the students and asks them to write
on their own or ask some questions regarding the picture.
v) Dictation
It is also an exercise to increase writing skill of the students. The teacher reads the
text in the classroom with a normal speed and asks students to write down with
correct spelling and punctuation marks. This exercise will also help students develop
their listening skill along with writing.
vi) Substitution table
The use of substitution table is also another type of writing exercise. A table with
sentence structures is given and the students are told to make sensible sentences.
Substitution tables are more important to teach students some structural concepts.
Here is an example of a substitution table:
I
We
You
Dolma
Students
is
are
am
eating
playing
reading
watching
brushing
football.
teeth.
rice.
books.
television.
Stages of writing
Writing develops through different stages. It starts from the stage of copying and
ends in free composition. The stages are as below:
i) Copying
This is the first stage of writing. The students are given exercises to copy. The
students should be told to copy first lines, then curves, squares, etc. before
copying letters. They should be told to copy the small letters then the capital
letters. They are also told to copy word, phrases, sentences and paragraphs.
ii) Reproduction
Students in this stage reproduce words and sentences of similar groups and they
do set correction exercises that are used in this stage in forms of substitution
tables, dictation. Here are two examples:
Look at the example and write similar sentences with the help of given verbs.
(read) He is reading now.
(sing) He is ...........now.
(dance) He ......……. now.
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