I don’t know about you, but teaching writing has always been on of the trickiest areas for me in my classroom. Not because I don’t love to write – I do! I love it, and I’ve spent my entire Summer break writing what accounts to a small novella, but when it comes to teaching it…
Oh, boy!
I’m also faced with the double challenge of having to teach Prep (Kinder kids, with very little writing backgrounds, usually) and First Graders at the same time from the beginning of the year. Talk about ‘hard to find middle-ground!’
Still, I think there’s one truly important thing that all teachers need to bring to writing sessions: PASSION. If we are passionate about what we’re writing, and we show that love of putting ideas to paper to students then they’ll jump on board with us every time.
My tips:
– Write often, on lots of topics
– Use school events as prompts for engaging recounts
– Use poetry and images as stimulus
– Write together as often as you encourage them to write independently
– Write class books (and I’ll have another post on this in a few days) together and share them
– SHARE, nothing is more important to a child than feeling like their writing is valued and important to others. By giving them time to share in front of the class, not only do they reflect on their writing through reading, but they’re in a safe environment that allows them to feel like a true author.
I’ve always been passionate about teaching Literacy – reading, writing and speaking and listening. All these areas are so intrinsically linked together and it’s important when teaching writing to highlight these connections with your students. Speaking and listening support reading which supports writing which encourages reading and speaking and listening.
Often times, it’s simply enough to have a writing book for students, and to open a fresh new page and brainstorm ideas together, prompts for writing. The topics are, quite frankly, endless, and limited only by our (the teachers) and our students’ imaginations.
At other times, it’s great to have a bank of resources that you can call on and use when you need that something that’s just a bit special for those special little kiddos in your classroom!
That’s why I’m thrilled to be part of a wonderful bundled of products that I’m so excited to share with you.
If you really want good resources than you are going to love this amazing deal over at Educents! I have teamed up with 17 other amazing sellers to load your classrooms with 27 outstanding resources for writing!
You have 4 page options for each sentence (one per letter of the alphabet) – single line and dotted lines with illustrations and single line and dotted lines without illustrations.
For the first half of the year I like to use the pages with illustrations for my Prep students – the colouring aspect gives them the opportunity to use different mediums (pencils, crayons, markers) while they’re still working on fine motor skills.
In the second half of the year I might use the pages without illustrations so that they begin to make those connections between the sentences and their mental images.
It’s REALLY important to read the sentences with younger students – and you’ll love the looks of amusement on their faces when you read the mixed-up sentence on the side. They LOVE to tell you how it’s ALL WRONG! (Great for teaching points!)
The word strip is designed to be cut off completely so that you don’t have messy edges on your sheets! (Yes, that drives me crazy, too!) Spend some time demonstrating to students how to cut along the dotted line (fine motor!) as straight as possible. Then they cut out the words and unscramble them on their page, and glue them down.
It’s really important to reinforce that they need to check that they’ve put the words in the correct order. Highlight the need to check capital letters and punctuation are in the correct spot and to read to check.
Having the sentence printed on the page gives them the independence of self-checking which is a crucial part of learning.
I think it’s really important students write the sentence out independently, using the supports of the printed and put-together sentence. This really reinforces word order, plus attention to detail.
Finally students colour or illustrate their page and once finished, read to a friend or partner to develop fluency. (It’s always fun to have them read it several times in different voices!)
But that’s MY product in the pack – there are 26 other fantastic writing packs for you to explore and take a look at!
For a limited time it is $29.99 from Educents which is over 71% off! It also includes these other great products so there is sure to things you love! (They even have $10 off for first time customers… so it can be even cheaper if you have never bought anything from Educents!)
There’s a lovely quote attributed to Confucius:
“Words are the voice of the heart.”
