Book excerpt: CONQUER CREATIVE WRITING BOOK 1 aims to provide young children with a systematic and progressive approach to composition writing. There are various types of exercises in this book: Rearrangement of words to form a sentence These exercises will encourage the students to think of the structure of a sentence carefully. Cloze passage, with pictures and helping words The pictures are direct references to the answers. The students will learn to associate a picture with a word to complete a story. This enables them to pick up new words and reinforce those that they have already learnt. Cloze passage, with a single picture and helping words The picture plays an indirect role here as it shows only the general theme of the passage. The students complete the story with the help of the words given. This encourages them to read carefully before choosing their answers. Cloze passage, without pictures but with helping words The students have to read through a passage once to get the general idea of the story. This will help them to choose the most appropriate word to fill in each blank to complete the story. Rearrangement of given sentences with pictures Reading and understanding are the focus of such questions. The students learn to rearrange given sentences to form a story based on the pictures given. Rearrangement of given sentences without pictures The students learn to think about a story in a logical sequence of events. They learn to rearrange the given sentences according to what they think is correct and logical. • Picture comprehension, guided by questions and helping words The exercises aim to teach students to think about a topic, theme or subject before writing. Helping words are given to help them express themselves better. Picture comprehension, without questions but with helping words The exercises encourage free response and writing. Given a theme, the students can write about their own experiences or make up an interesting story. Helping words are given to help them express themselves better. Imaginative writing Given a theme, the students will be asked several questions. They can use their imagination to answer the questions. These exercises enable them to be creative and to express their ideas freely. The various themes used in these exercises present a list of vocabulary that students will find useful when writing compositions on similar themes in school. The reading required to do the exercises in this book will improve the students’ comprehension and writing skills.