WRITING

During Writing Workshop, your child will learn specific writing skills/strategies which will help them produce their own authentic pieces. Your child will also learn the steps of the writing process: pre-write, draft ("tell the story across the pages"), revise, edit ("fix and fancy"), publish, and celebrate. The teaching of writing occurs daily. Writing Workshop consists of:

• Mini-Lesson (5-10 minutes)

  • Through demonstration and modeling, the teacher teaches new skills/strategies that the students will use during the independent writing time.

• Independent Writing (20 minutes)

  • The students use the skills/strategies taught from the mini-lesson and work in their writing folder to practice. The writing folder contains previous writing that the students deem finished or not finished. The students will learn to write personal narratives that include a beginning, middle, and an end, as well as non-fiction ("All About") books. During this time, the children are encouraged to use their alphabet card, the classroom word wall, and a spaceman tool to make their writing easier to read. Writing can be in many forms such as pictures, letters, words or a sentence. "Invented" spelling should be encouraged and is accepted in Kindergarten. Praise should be given for efforts to spell or sound out words independently. As a result, spelling may not be corrected on every piece of work. The spelling of introduced sight words should be practiced.

• Conferring

  • While students are involved in independent writing, the teacher uses this time to move around the room and conference with individual students. During this time, the teacher provides support with sequencing, sentence structure, and grammatical skills.

• Sharing

  • At the end of Writing Workshop, students meet and have the opportunity to share their writing with the class.