Evelien van Dort (right) hands out the AVI writing certificate to children’s book author Loekie Morales.
WILLEMSTAD/PHILIPSBURG–The National Library of Curaçao has organized a workshop for writers, entitled “Writing stories via the AVI system.” Writer of children’s books Loekie Morales was among the participants.
Evelien van Dort, who has written many storybooks for children, conducted the workshop training to 20 writer/participants. She received a royal decoration in 2016 in recognition of her services to literature and literacy in the Netherlands.
The aim of the writing workshop was to stimulate aspiring writers to use this system as a tool to write and to publish more children’s books written in a comprehensive language that children can easily read.
AVI stands for Analysis of Individualization. The system was developed in 1972 and modernized in 1994 by KPC Group in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, with the aim to individualize the reading education. In the meantime, it has taken an important place in basic education in the Netherlands and Belgium.
AVI has 12 levels by which a school measures how the technical reading development of a child is. Basically, it boils down to the usage of specific guidelines to write for certain age groups, taking into consideration the maximum number of words in a sentence, the length of these words and the usage of punctuation marks and capitals, for instance. At the end of the day, the AVI method is a technical method to write a story in simple language, that is understandable for children.
During the workshop, participants were trained in the theory of AVI writing, interspersed with examples. Their homework assignment was to write a story on a chosen AVI-level and to present this story to their fellow participants in the Dutch and Papiamentu language.
Morales said she was “happy” that she could participate in the training. “Writing children’s books is an art and writing AVI-children’s books is that for sure. It’s a challenge to write an exciting story and to captivate children in a pleasant language from the beginning until the end. The techniques I have learned in this AVI training will help me in writing more consciously for specific age groups,” she said.
“Writing exciting stories for children is a blessing. I will continue to be inspired by children in the first place to write beautiful stories that our Caribbean children can relate to. My senses are my first guide when writing stories. I use writing techniques to refine the language of my story and to make it more accessible,” Morales said.
Morales has nine children’s books under her name, with topics varying between everyday life to very imaginative stories
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/83790-loekie-morales-certified-for-avi-story-writing
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