A Quick Proofread Together
When the learner has produced a draft, even just one sentence long, the practitioner and learner do a quick proofread together.
As learners finish their writing and come to hand it in, I have a short one-to-one session with them to do a quick check for periods and missing words. Even here in private, I point out what they have done well and ignore the rest.
Tips for Proofreading
- Start by reminding the learner why we proofread: to make it easier for others to read and understand. Every writer wants the reader to read a piece the way the author meant it to be read. Proofreading makes this possible.
- Ask each learner to read the piece aloud while they check for periods and missing words.
- Don’t call any attention to missing periods or to periods in the wrong place.
- Stop them every time they come to a place where their punctuation is correct and say that it is correct. “That period is exactly where it needs to be.”
- Add an explanation of why a period is needed at that place. Where Do the Periods Go? is a poster for learners.
As they proofread, learners will often notice a place where a period is missing and put it in. Show your delight by complimenting them on their proofreading skills. When we point out learners’ errors, we are doing the proofreading for them, not teaching them to proofread.
Over time, as they get better at putting periods in their work, and are bored with me interrupting them with an explanation of why they are correct, I turn the tables. I ask them how they know they need a period at that particular place. There is a shift from me saying why a period is needed over to them articulating the rules about periods. This small shift is an example of the way the responsibility for analyzing why the writing is good can shift from practitioner to learner. As the learner learns a skill, the practitioner models how to articulate the steps in the skill. As the learner becomes more proficient, the practitioner nudges them to begin to talk about their thinking process.
When their periods are nearly all correct, I may ask them to hunt for the missing one: “In this paragraph, there is only one period missing. Can you find where it should go?”