Tag Archives: young developing writers

We’re celebrating our journey this week. Tomorrow, we have our 3 Way Conferences and my students will be explaining their learning to their parents. This week, many of my students had another learning leap and this is evidenced in their independent writing. Their portfolios are ready to show and it amazes them how much they know.

 The ‘freebie’ word was Saturday. My students are using Saturday and Sunday as a sequencing structure  for their journals at present. I intend to introduce simple pre-planning scaffolds to help them structure their writing early next term. Have a look at the commas in sample 3 – love that ‘have a go’ attitude of my preps. We’ve been looking at commas when reading, and my students have been finding out what they do.  I’m now seeing commas being used in their writing without prompting.

Cheers Nina

I feel like I’ve neglected this space but today was a great day for one of my students. The transformation of a student’s understanding and the thrill that was experienced by the child is so rewarding for teacher and student. The expression on the child’s face said it all for me. That realization that he is a writer and what he writes can be read by others. I’ll keep posting about this child’s journey throughout his first year of formal education in Australia (Prep – 5 & 6 Year Olds). All posts referencing this child’s journey will be called, ‘His Journey’.

February

April

June 7th   I went to soccer. This child is going to ‘zoom’.  All I can say is we need to be patient and positive with young writers. It’s all about readiness, nurture and trusting the journey.

Cheers Nina

A very quick post because I’m writing school reports and I’m sorry about the photo quality… This is my Preps first year of schooling, most are 5 years of age and a small number are 6 years old. Some of my 5 year olds have only recently turned 5. This puts their writing development into perspective.

My Preps have just been on their first major whole day excursion to the Immigration Museum in the city. I’ve uploaded their independent writing about the day. To help them remember to put spaces between the words they used a small circular maths counter. This was perfect and didn’t interfere with their writing. This was so successful that my children will continue to use the space counter.

Their ‘freebie’ word for this writing piece was ‘Immigration Museum’. My Preps are using their knowledge of sounds and our THRASS chart when writing. I’m really excited by their progress. Each child is on their own journey and all are moving forward.

Cheers Nina

This week I gave my students their first lined book. They’ve only been at school for a total of eleven weeks so it’s early. We usually use dotted thirds in my area of Australia, but this year I decided to give my students plain lines before dotted thirds and earlier in the year. Some teachers might question these very young children using lines at all, but as a number of students are writing more than one sentence they actually need a line to encourage them to not confuse one sentence with another. I was wondering how they would handle lines but they loved it. Very grown up… and if they don’t sit their letters on the line it really doesn’t matter. They will eventually.

What will the children understand, know and be able to do?  WALT – We are learning to… Short, sharp and focussed

• Write a simple text – personally significant
• Write for their own purpose & share
• Use their understanding of the alphabet and its sound system when writing
• Use conventional letters ( transfer of taught letters)
• Use some simple punctuation i.e. full stop, and capital letters with understanding
• Begin to talk about how writing is used to share or note ideas, feelings and information
• Understand the purpose of their writing
• Form letters correctly – transfer of taught letter and letter families  
• write a simple Recount / Information text

Independent Journal Writing Samples – a range is shown here.

The children were introduced to their first sequencing scaffold i.e. On Saturday…On Sunday… This is helping to extend their writing. My students are all travelling their own journey but all are moving forward and I can see the transfer of teaching and learning into their writing. I’m revisiting the Early Years Literacy strategies and would say to everyone keep revisiting – Modelled Writing, Shared Writing, Interactive Writing, Guided Writing & Independent Writing.

Cheers Nina

I write to reflect and reflect to write!  It improves my practice…

I’ve made a committment to showcasing a different sample of writing each week. I’ve been so busy with my TPL Project that this is actually a few days late and includes one sample from today.

Focus: Capital Letters, Upper Case and Lower Case letters.

Inquiry Where do we find capital letters and when do we use lower case letters?

Children are given time to think and explore the room to find examples of capital letters and lower case letters. They are to investigate where they are used in writing samples. I think this helps to develop my student’s writing as many children can say the answer, but finding evidence for their thinking really shows their understanding. 

The children looked at the evidence collected during their search (as a group) and as a result were able to articulate how capital letters, upper case and lower case letters are used in words and sentences. They could also state when a capital letter is required. It’s interesting to note that a large number of children have been writing the word ‘I’ as ‘i’ in their writing and this came out in the discussion. Perfect! Hopefully, I’ll see the transfer of their new understanding in their writing over the next few weeks.

You’ll notice a ‘dot’ in the top left hand side of the page. I put this there so the children remember where to start their writing and which direction to write. There are a number of children who don’t need this, but every now and again they will surprise me and start from the other side.

Today’s sample (above): I went to the dawn service and I had McDonalds and then I went home. Interesting to note that a number of children are representing ‘th’ as ‘v’ as in then ‘ven’. This will be a teaching point planned as a writing focus. Once again, I focus on, and plan sessions to teach the ‘concepts of print’ over and over.

(above) This is an interesting sample. My initial reaction to this piece of writing was – it’s a string of letters. However, when I asked the child to read it to me I could easily read what the student had written. And even though I had identified where to start writing from by a dot in the corner of the page for this student, the child still started on the other side. This is not unusual and is a teaching point for this child. The sentence the child wrote is: I went to the football with my own ball. I liked to (omission) to football. It’s actually an excellent piece of writing by the child. Cementing the use of lower case and upper case letters will be addressed many times as will full stops.

 I love reading my student’s writing and looking for individual or common elements that need to be planned into an individual student’s teaching session or as a small group or whole class focus. I’ve found that the biggest ‘thing’ that stops learning is FEAR! We celebrate all attempts at ‘having a go’. A number of students are being challenged to write a two or three linked sentences to expand their ideas. However, that’s another post on scaffolding strategies.

I’m still researching ‘Read Aloud’ and sharing what I find with a colleague who is keen to develop this strategy. We’ve found that the powerful strategy that is becoming evident in our reading is ‘Think Aloud’. I’m using ‘Think Aloud’ myself when modelling writing. I’ll be writing more about this strategy as I think it’s really worthwhile spending time developing.

Cheers Nina

I was asked by a regular visitor to my blog if I would post weekly writing samples and it’s amazing how a student’s writing can show growth in one week. That’s one of the exciting rewards of teaching very young students.

Another week has passed and the end of the first term for my Preps has arrived. I spent last week reviewing their writing and listening to reading. These young readers and writers are great ‘risk takers’. They need to be ‘risk takers’ with their learning and also need to know that this is  a valued behaviour. Listening to Sir Ken Robinson has once again stressed how important this is.  Visit our Teacher Professional Leave  ‘ning’ – we’ve uploaded some great videos, join the ‘ning’ and share with us or just learn what we are learning. 

Next term, I intend to post more about reading and the different strategies that I’m going to trial and build upon. I’ve been able to access some new ideas and have had some great resources shared with me. I’m a learner here and a ‘risk taker’.

I’ve included samples displaying the range of growth in my class. This is independent writing.  Student Led Interactive Writing, Journal Writing and Inquiry Reflections are planned weekly. Guided Writing and Teacher Led Interactive Writing will be introduced early next term. We also have free writing time. My students  love making little books and are trying to write stories. It’s  a natural process for these children. Their understanding of ‘book language’ is developing and they are using this knowledge to support their writing. My tips- I read to my students everyday, we read our Language Experience Wall, we write everyday, we share reading big books and we share our learning.

Cheers Nina

This week was the Prep’s first full week at school in their first formal year of education. Every now and again, I’ve got to ‘step back’ and remember their age. I have very high expectations and need to let them ‘smell the flowers’ sometimes. Today they spent part of the day just doing that. They are really creative little people and love drawing, making and decorating paper planes, using the construction materials and dancing. I love seeing the children play families with the doll’s house and listening to their conversations. They need more of this… I sometimes need to slow down and let them give their ‘brains a rest’. When a child tells you ‘their head is full’, you need to change plans.

I’ve decided to post a weekly snapshot of writing in response to a request, which displays the range of writing and development for both Interactive Writing and Independent Writing. The first samples are pieces of writing from their new Inquiry Reflection Journals. We’ve just finished our first inquiry and have been discussing what we have discovered. I’ve explained to them that they need to draw a border each time they record their reflections in this journal. The notion of a border was introduced to our staff by Lane Clark. She explained that when children design and write within a border they have a greater chance of remembering what they have written. The children now have a Journal and an Inquiry Reflection Journal. Our first inquiry is outlined below:

WHO WE ARE

Central Idea: Personal awareness and perspective of others helps develop self-identity

The children have discovered that we’re all different, our families are different, we look different and we like different things. We have been celebrating the fact that we are all different because as one child said, ‘it would be a very boring if we were the same’. The children recorded some of the things they like and we’ll be sharing these next week.

Inquiry Journal – Week 7

Interactive Writing – Week 7

The sentences these children are brainstorming as a class are challenging and this has been a bit tricky. All groups are composing the same class sentence at present which is related to shared experience.  Some of the words they are trying to spell are difficult, however, I’m always impressed by their attempts. Their sentence is, ‘When people are hurt we go to a teacher.’

Next week is the last week of term 1. I can’t believe that it’s holidays already, but I won’t complain!

Cheers Nina

I had a few teachers visit this week and as I tend to plan Student Led Interactive Writing on a Thursday, I thought it would be great for our visitors to see this teaching strategy in action. The children came up with the sentence – When the bell goes don’t be late. Quite an ambitious sentence to compose, but it was their sentence and that’s important. They have a number of strategies to help them with their writing now, but it is the collaborative nature of this strategy which makes it powerful. They are learning to prompt each other at present. When the children are confidently leading this strategy, I will start taking a group for Teacher Led Interactive Writing while the other groups are writing. The teacher led group will target students with similar learning needs.

As we only have two weeks of this term left,  I’m hoping to be able to start this next term. We have four terms in Australia and I can’t believe term one is nearly over. This group of children have been at school for 38 days. I’m very pleased with their progress.

On Friday the children wrote journal entries for their independent writing. I’m always  looking for the transfer of teaching and learning into their independent writing. All my students are moving forward with their reading and writing. Language Experience is the approach of choice – ‘give it a go’ if you’re not already using this approach.

Photo 1 Text: I love doing puzzles at school.

Photo 2 Text: You do school work on a DS.

Photo 3 Text: My friend came to my house.

 Just a quick post! This week our Preps will attend school for 5 days. It will be their first full week at school.

Cheers Nina  ‘Whoops’ – only 24 days!