Reading and Writing Problems among Children in Primary Schools.

Reading and writing skills are the basics ability for students. This is because a
student need to reading and write when he or she is studying. However, some of the
student in primary school fail to cope reading and writing skills. These may become a
problem if they wish to further their study in future. They will fail to gain knowledge from
articles or books. This is because they cannot handle the reading skills. If a student
cannot cope his or her writing skill, they will face problem when they want to express
their thoughts. Teachers in school teach their students equally, but, why some students
have difficulties learning to read and write?

In the basic concept of child development, development involves the process of

qualitative change in individuals. The development of a person is the mastery of thinking
skills or the mastery of social skills. The development of children develops gradually and
continuously and is closely linked to the maturity and learning process of children in the
environment.
First of all, many poor readers have not consistently engaged in the language
play that develops an awareness of sound structure and language patterns. In Malaysia,
English is not our mother tongue. Most of the children do not familiar in language such
as English. This is because English is not the first language for students. The former
Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Dato Sri Michael Manyin
said that, parents are the best people in nurturing the reading habit among children.
Reading increases knowledge, builds maturity and character, sharpens thinking and
widens awareness of social, economic, political, and environmental issues. If their
parents do not encourage them to read English book, they will not read it. Moreover, if
the children comes from poor family or those from homes where the parents' reading
levels and practices are low, and those with speech, language, and hearing handicaps
are at increased risk of reading failure

Secondly, some of them are poor comprehension when they are reading. There
is a lot going on in reading, from letter and word recognition to understanding meaning at
the phrase, sentence and paragraph level. When a student encounters vocabulary they
do not know or do not recognise due to inaccurate decoding, they are likely to skip
ahead. The more blanks in a line of text, the harder it is to make meaning and the more
cognitively challenging and frustrating the reading task becomes. That is why poor
comprehension can result when a student struggles with decoding, has a limited
vocabulary or attempts to read a text that is at too high of a level.

Besides that, in Malaysia, community are not familiar with the reading
surroundings. In a recent study conducted by Central Connecticut State University
(CCSU), Malaysia was ranked sixth from the bottom of a list of 61 countries in the
World’s Most Literate Nation (WMLN) ranking. This shows Malaysians do not like to
read. If the adult do not read, how they can influence a child to read?

In my opinion, these problem must be solved. This is because reading and

writing skills is very important. As a teacher, teacher should encourage student to read
and write. “Practice makes perfect.” Teacher should give some reading and writing task
daily. Furthermore, teacher should able to give chances to all the students so that all of
the students can learn. For your knowledge, at the age of 7 to 11, children should be
given the opportunity to try new things so that children do not appear inferior. For
example, reading a story book, all of the students need to share about the story to
classmate, and give some opinion about it through writing. From this task, students can
learn about reading, communicate with people, and writing. When students are sharing
with their classmates, they will discuss about their opinion. Discussion help them to
understand more and learn about communicative skills. In Vygotsky's theory, active
students build knowledge and understanding. Language acquisition does not apply
without social interaction. As a teacher, teacher should guide students to carry out the
task.

In addition, teachers can use ICT to teach the students. The equipment that
had been provided in school such as computer lab, “Smart board”, and LCD should be
used in PdP. This is because children 7-11 years old, their concrete operating stages
are still growing. If the teacher uses abstract concepts, primary school children will have
trouble understanding because the concept does not give meaning to them. This can
also excite students and help them to expose in creative activity. For example, hearing
test can be more fun when teachers give the students to hear the lyrics of pop songs and
write the vocabulary. Study will be more fun and effective because students like it and
do not feel bored. As a good teacher, teacher should think about the creative method to
teach students. Teacher should also grab opportunity to make the students think the
academic is fun. Critical thinking also should be practiced in class.

Furthermore, teacher should guide students so that they can learn from failure,
but not afraid to failure. By Helen Snodgrass, “When students first walked into my
classroom this fall, many of them immediately noticed a large quote on the wall above
the whiteboard: ‘In this class, failure is not an option. It’s a requirement.’ ‘You want us to
fail?’ they all asked incredulously. While they were skeptical of my intentions at first, by
the end of that first class period they were already starting to see how failure could
actually be a good thing.” This shows that failure is not terrible, but students must learn
something from it.
 In fact, teachers need to know that not all children are clever. Despite the
difficulty of mastering certain skills, teachers need to teach them with care. This is
because the speed of development varies between children. Although the patterns and
developments in the development of children are the same, the growth and development
rates of each domain, namely cognitive domain, affective domain, and psychomotor
domain vary between one child and another.
Besides that, teachers need to observe their students. This is because not every
child comes from good family. Some of them are raised poverty, their parents are limited
proficiency in English, those from homes where the parents' reading levels and practices
are low. The children from such family need more attention from teacher. Teachers
should encourage, guide or provide them a better surrounding to read and write. They
are not born from educational family, they will face more difficulty when they wish to
study. Teachers can guide them about reading sources such as library or Internet.

Additionally, teachers need to understand the development of the limbs of the

children. In writing exercise activities, teachers are realizing and aware that their
physical, cognitive, and affective levels of maturity are different. Moreover, when a
teacher finds that a student is hard at mastering reading and writing skills, the teacher
needs to find the reason for the pupil who fails to master the skills. This is because
factors affecting the development of children are very important to a student. Genetic
factors, environment, nutrition are factors that will determine the performance of a child.
In the Bronfenbrenner ecology, it also states that the environment will determine the
performance of children. Let's imagine, a child lives in a city and a child lives in the
countryside, their chance to learn new things related to the academic is different.
Therefore, during the PdP process, a superior teacher should have the good
communication skills to help students understand what teachers are teaching, and
teachers need to make sure the student responds. Teachers also need to guide students
to learn critical thinking skills during PdP time so that children can apply these skills
during writing.
To conclude, reading and writing skills should be manage by every students.
This is because a student needs reading skills to gain knowledge. Students need writing
skills to express their thoughts. Students are from various family and background.
Teachers should alert and observe them carefully so that help them to manage reading
and writing skills. In this era, teachers should give a lot of opportunity to students so that
they can express their thoughts and feelings. The creativity of students can be exposed
through guidance from teachers. Even a child may be born in a simple family, the child
may not be simple. Maybe the child will become an excellent student. In every child who
is born, under no matter what circumstances, and no matter what parents, the
potentiality of the human race is born again. (James Agee, 2014). In 21 century of
teaching, role as a teacher is not only teaching, but guiding students to the right and
positive path ways. Preventing writing difficulties and intervening successfully when
such problems occur requires a sustained and concerted effort on the part of the school,
parents, and the community. There is no quick or easy fix that will make the problems
disappear. It is not only important to intervene early, but also to provide a sustained and
coherent effort over time.