The interests and activities children enjoy out of school can enrich classroom discussion as well as their reading and writing. Very young children enjoy talking about their ‘news’ and will sometimes be asked to write and draw about such things as going swimming, playing computer games and family outings. Sometimes sharing a book can awaken an interest – it is never to early to become an expert! One of my students was surprised at the range and depth of questions from five year olds when she shared Claire Llewellyn’s My Best Book of Creepy Crawlies (Kingfisher) with them. I find that seven to nine year olds often have hobbies based round collections of items which they like to label and annotate: wild flowers, shells, fossils and stones. Parents and friends can acknowledge and develop these interests with gifts of books and CD-ROMs.
Children’s hobbies and interests provide a route into non-fiction reading and serve as a springboard for enthusiastic writing. Two friends, one aged eight the other nine, were able to enthuse others in their class when the teacher invited them to talk about their shared hobby – reading and learning about fossils and especially dinosaurs (see Making Facts Matter, Mallett, 1992). The generation of lively talk and thinking is also evident in a case study in which a ten year old demonstrates his care of a pet snake to the whole school (Mallett, 2007).
Angela Redfern (1994) writes about her success in helping an unenthusiastic young writer gain a sense of purpose when encouraged to write about his passionate interest in hens. When asked about his chickens, Redfern writes ‘it was like switching on a light bulb. Once he got started, it became clear that Owen, aged six, knew everything there is to know about keeping chickens and as he gathered momentum he positively glowed.’ After much effort, Owen was helped to produce a book for the school library which had sections on ‘kinds of chickens’, ‘food’ and ‘laying eggs’.
Mallett, Margaret (1992) Making Facts Matter: Reading Non-fiction 5–11 London: Paul Chapman.
Mallett, Margaret (2007) Active Encounters: Inspiring Young Readers and Writers of Non-fiction. 4–11, UKLA minibook.
Redfern, Angela (1994) ‘Introducing Owen, expert eggstraordinary: the launching of a young writer’ in TACTYC Early Years Journal, 14(2).
