Why proofreading?
What is the impact of proofreading on Grade 5 students writing scores?
General topic of interest
We inspect what we respect!
It is important to assess your students’ growth in writing, using a number of different lenses, to notice what students can do.
Although it is often overlooked, self proofreading is very important. Having your work checked acts as a final check before submission and helps to fix any errors that have not been spotted by the writer at first. It can sometimes be difficult for the student to spot any mistakes or inconsistencies, however, with some educators’ guidance and practice, proofreading routines can be developed.
Participants
Grade 5 students from São Paulo.
Data collecting approach
For this research, data was collected from Grade 5 students (groups A and B in São Paulo), during the months of September, October and November/2020, both in English and in Portuguese.
To understand student’s written productions, educators looked at their on-demand pieces of writing to find out:
Which children do and do not tend to write in paragraphs?
Which children do and do not include direct dialogue and use quotation marks and other punctuation associated with dialogue?
Which children do and do not generally control their verb tenses?
Which children do and do not generally control subject-verb agreement so that the subjects and verbs are either plural or singular?
Which children are learning to compose complex sentences?
Which children do and do not cater for spelling?
Data collecting example
Worksheets
Emerging results
In one quote, I would say ‘The more you try, the better you get’.
Proofreading is often skipped by students and it might be a valuable tool. Guided proofreading not only allows educators to spot content that still requires attention, but is also a unique opportunity of learning.
