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August 29, 2015

Scaffolding Beginning Writers

We are 14 days into school (woohoo) and I wanted to share some of the ways I’m supporting my very-beginning writers. One of the best parts of 1st grade is seeing the amazing growth students make in 9 short months. They enter writing single sentences (sometimes single words) and leave writing cohesive paragraphs – it’s amazing! BUT, students need daily, explicit writing instruction for this to happen with chances to write every.single.day.
Teaching 1st grade last year, I never knew I needed to teach students to write in a journal. So, I handed out writing journals and we jumped in. FRIENDS – I paid dearly for my mistake ALL year long and writings journals were a hot mess. Letters everywhere, mish-mashed pages of writing, tons of illustrations for missing writings – ALL.MY.FAULT.

How Do I Write in a Journal?

This year, I was more proactive and started with a “How to Write in a Journal” mini-lesson on the 2nd day of school. So, you might be asking, how do you write in a journal?
  • Open to the closest empty page
  • Date in the upper right-hand corner
  • Picture on the bottom or top (please decide before writing)
  • Your letters should fit on two lines. Lowercase letters fit below the first line.
  • Leave a 1-line space between your writing
As you’ll see throughout this post, our journals are not perfect…BUT they are lightyears ahead of where I was last year. Plus, I am *super* proud of my friends. They have worked SO hard on writing and I already have some fabulous writers (thanks Kinder teachers!!).

 

How Do I Spell???

On Day 3, our mini-lesson is all about the chorus on “I don’t know how to spell. How do you spell? What letter comes next?” Give into these demands and your writing conferences turn into a Spelling Bee instead of a conversation.

In front of the whole class I model writing a narrative by stretching out words. Then, I underline words I am unsure of. I teach my students that an underline means – “Hey Ms. W. I tried really hard to stretch out this word, but I still don’t think it’s right.” If it is a sight word, a sound is obviously missing, or a phonics pattern we’re learning, I’ll ask students about it. If not, I leave it for now.  Underlining is a sanity saver!

One of the most daunting parts of writing is the forgotten word. I love when students read their writing to me, only to realize they left out the word “Phil”. From the very beginning, I teach my students to insert ‘carrots’ (this little friend added some arrow pizzaz) to indicate words need to be added. For long sentences or details that are added, I teach students to use an astrik and add it at the bottom of their paper. It keeps us from panicking and it reminds students they should be rereading their work.

*Standing on soapbox*
So, as teachers, we are told over and over that our math instruction needs to move from Concrete to Representational to Abstract. And we do this because it provides ‘real’ experiences of students and a context for real. Guess what? It works and it’s amazing! WRITING IS NO DIFFERENT. Students must have hands-on, real-experiences. Writing cannot remain this painful task of pencil-to-paper work, I’m-writing-because-my-teacher-told-me-to-write. 
*Off soapbox*

How Do I Make Writing ‘Real’?

During the 2nd week, I put my scientists to work to explore and learn about our three class plants – Plantuska (bamboo), Phil (a vine), and Rocket (a hydrangea). Students worked in partners with a magnifying glass to make observations about our plants. After spending 15-20 minutes making observations and talking about them, we went back to our seats and wrote about one of the plants we observed. I turned on Yo-Yo Ma and it was AMAZING. I love seeing my friends in their element. Plus, they were plant experts (duh – 15 minutes does that for you!) and knew exactly what they wanted to share.

Real-world experiences matter when writing. They provide students with the confidence to write, the context for why we are writing, and a scaffold for how to start.

 

How Do I Use a Sentence Stem?

In the first few weeks, I do use a lot of sentence stems. While students are always welcome to stray from this support, for many it gives them a way to structure their ideas. As I begin launching Writer’s Workshop on Monday (woohoo), I’ll begin to remove these stems. They will reappear as we start writing paragraphs and open responses.

How Do I Assess My Writing?

With writing journals, I do struggle with a way to evaluate and encourage students to add more details. This week one of our mini-lessons was all about adding details to our illustrations and writings. I had 4 pre-written/pre-illustrated versions of the same story. Students helped me to rate the writings (1-4 stars). We talked about what questions we had as we read the stories, what was missing from the illustrations, and which story we would rather read. Then, we went back to our seats and looked at some of our old writings from the first 2 weeks of school. We went back, adding details to our writings and our illustrations to make their 3 and 4 star works of art! It was a simple mini-lesson, that we’ll reference often. (You can snag these sentences and writing paper for here free or snag it as a part of my Beginning of the Year writing bundle here.)

How Do I Share My Writing?

In these beginning weeks of writing, I also explicitly teach my students how to share their writing and give feedback to their friends. We save the last 7-8 minutes of our writing block for sharing. This is the biggest motivator for my kids; they LOVE sharing their writing. Typically 4-5 students share each afternoon, so every child has the opportunity to share each week.

Our sharing routine looks like this –

  1. Encouragement/Building Community Teacher: “I choose __________.” (in a sing-song voice) Students: “Let’s go __________!” (in a sing-song voice that matches mine)
  2. Sharing the Work: The student puts his/her work under the document camera so it projects on the screen, and wears the microphone to share.
  3. Specific Feedback: Then, the friend who just read his/her work chooses 2 friends from the class to give a specific compliment (“I love how you told me ___________.” “You did a great job of _______________.” “I really liked how you _________________.”
  4. Class Cheer: The presenter may then choose a class cheer to receive. We use Kagan Cheers and love them. Our favorites? Trucker, roller coaster, seal of approval. 🙂
Friends, I am so excited to see how my 1st graders grow this year. I feel like we’ve devoted a *ton* of time to writing this year, but it is already paying off. Plus, these initial scaffolds will allow for Writer’s Workshop to launch easily this week!
What are your go-to ways to scaffold beginning writers? I’d love to hear what works for your classroom! If you’re interested in the resources and mini-lessons for the ideas above, you can snag them here.
BOY Writing MiniLessons Cover

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Related Posts

  • 1st Grade How To Writing
  • Paragraph Writing in 1st and 2nd Grade
  • Narrative Writing: Launching Writer’s Workshop
  • Work on Writing IdeasWork on Writing Ideas

Filed Under: 1st Grade, Differentiated Instruction, My Classroom, Writing Tagged With: 1st Grade, Writer's Workshop, Writing

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Mona says

    August 29, 2015 at 2:04 pm

    I would love to use a student microphone. I can only imagine how much they must love speaking into it. What kind do you use?

    Mona
    First Grade Schoolhouse

    Reply
  2. Big Reader says

    August 29, 2015 at 3:36 pm

    I use the document camera as well but would love to add the microphone. Can you share what kind and where you found it?

    Reply
  3. Josie Flores says

    August 29, 2015 at 7:27 pm

    I would love to see how you launch writer's workshop.

    Reply
  4. Shunifer says

    August 30, 2015 at 2:08 pm

    I really enjoyed this clear and concise post. Thanks.

    Reply
  5. Shunifer says

    August 30, 2015 at 2:08 pm

    I really enjoyed this clear and concise post. Thanks.

    Reply
  6. Shunifer says

    August 30, 2015 at 2:08 pm

    I really enjoyed this clear and concise post. Thanks.

    Reply
  7. Becky Mitchell says

    August 30, 2015 at 9:14 pm

    I would love to hear how you launch writer's workshop….this is great!!

    Reply
  8. Dalia Chauveau says

    August 31, 2015 at 10:32 pm

    Great post, great ideas. Thank-you for sharing!

    Reply
  9. Gretchen Edwards says

    September 6, 2015 at 11:17 pm

    I love your blog! I began using Writer's Workshop last year and what a difference it made in my kids' writing! I used the book No More I'm Done by Jennifer Jacobson to help develop my lessons. Good luck with your writing workshop this year and I'm looking forward to hearing more about it!

    Reply
  10. Jodi Pritchard says

    September 20, 2015 at 2:23 am

    Loved reading this, and you share so many great ideas and strategies. Love Writing Workshop. Thank you!

    Reply
  11. Carrie H says

    October 25, 2015 at 5:44 am

    Love this.

    Reply
  12. Allen jeley says

    March 21, 2016 at 12:43 pm

    I am first grade student and many time i can't write beautiful and this article give me good idea how to improve your writing thanks for share it writing cover letters .

    Reply
  13. Amy Cain says

    May 2, 2016 at 12:40 am

    I love your ideas for Writer's Workshop. Hopefully I can cram in a lot of them at the beginning of the year next year before we're required to use our Series.

    Reply

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My name is Catherine Reed, and I am a fourth-year teacher living in small-town, Kentucky.  I student taught in 1st grade and never imagined myself ...

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Sweet! Thanks so much for joining me. Now check your email to confirm your address & snag your freebies. Happy Teaching! -Catherine

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