I’m being asked to talk about the writing a lot these days. I’m very happy to do so. I write and plan in a very controlled but chaotic way. Visually minded boys quite often respond to my methods especially when they see me writing dyslexically on the flip chart. They realise they are not alone.

However, I’m beginning to sense of feeling of despair in Primary Schools. What can they do to inspire children to write?

I think the answer is really very simple. Too much is being expected of the children by the oppressive National Curriculum. Who on Earth sets the targets and systems our children are facing?

Primary school children are not just asked to plan and write stories in very prescriptive ways, they have to write in various genre! Most of the kids will never have read anything in that genre other than the few paragraphs of text supplied as an example.

There is one surefire way to improve writing and that is to read. Read a lot and the writing follows. You wouldn’t make a horror movie if you’d never seen a horror film. How can you write a horror story if if you’ve never read one?

Children bring all their experience of genres to the classroom from the TV and video games. That’s okay, but if they never read, how are they ever supposed to know how to put the words together in the right order. There is nothing quite like seeing how others do it. And what could be a more rewarding way of learning than reading all the greatest stories ever written.

Look around a modern classroom. Where have the books gone? They’ve been replaced by computers. Why should children be bothered to read when the message they are being given is so blatant and obvious? Books are those boring things in the piled on shelves under the stairs that gets called the library. Books are for the saddos that don’t want to waste hours of time on the computer looking like they are doing real work.

C’mon – admit it. How much real work do YOU do on a computer? And you expect children to be any different?

Stick the computers back in the computer suite where they belong, and flood your classrooms with books and stories. Before long your children will be writing up to level without any teaching. It will be someting they want and need to do.