Kinders12: Writing

I have talked about and encouraged the students to write from the first day of school. I did a sample page to help generate some ideas and told them that we can all be authors. Some kids have written many books while others haven't finished one yet.

Last week we had our first dedicated writing lesson and I was impressed with the stamina all the kids displayed. During the lesson I read them a story (The Wrong Book by Nicolas Bland) and we talked a bit about it. I then sent them off to write - you can see them writing in a past post. The lesson lasted about 7 minutes (you have to work quickly with 5 year olds) and then they wrote for about 20 minutes.

I was amazed!!!! 20 minutes is an enormous amount of time for a class just beginning to write. Some kids never get to 20 mins. We then stopped writing to share what we have done. Sharing for most students is the best/worst part of writing. More than anything they want to share their own work; more than anything they don't want to quietly sit while others share their work.

This is a sample from the class of a book that was started during our writing workshop and completed during choice time. This child has written many books so far this year. A few children in the class have received gift books from him. To say he loves to right would be an understatement.

The one thing that you will probably notice is that you have no idea what he is writing about. That's okay. He knows and he's building strategies that he will use for further writing.

When your child brings a book home, please take the time to let them read it to you. You will be able to hear their learning in the description of the story.

Front cover. After I took this picture he quickly ran off and added his name.

This page made me very happy - HE USED LETTERS!!!! It will be weeks before I teach anything about letters/words in a book. Children learn very well when another child shows them how to do something. I'm hoping that this catches on and I have a few kids to model this skill to the class.