Writing

In my opinion, writing can be sometimes undervalued and underrated. Writing gives a wonderful glimpse into your child's phonics understanding and allows them to apply and practice learned phonics rules. Writing and reading are very closely connected. Encourage writing and drawing to communicate information whenever possible!

Simplified Writing Skills Progression

Beginning Skills:

o Taught sight words spelled correctly

o Words sitting on bottom line

o When forming letters, “start at the top” and “do not lift your pencil!”

o Consistent spacing

o Phonetic spelling has the correct main consonant and main vowel sound

o Writing a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end

Advanced Skills

o Begin with a capital and follow with lowercase letters, ending in punctuation (we briefly discussed: ? ! .)

o “When I say these sounds, do you hear the word you were trying to write”-This helps the student hear the sound that is missing and brings awareness to their phonetic spelling

o At this point, students should be spelling words (that are not sight words) by incorporating their knowledge of letter sounds with digraphs (sh, ch, ing, ng, th, ck) and blends (ex. bl, fr, sp). **We just introduced r blends so they may have difficulty with that one.

o Add details, prompt by asking the student “where, why, who, how, then what?”- Aim stories for 3 or more sentences!

o Writing an informational piece (All About___)

o Writing an opinion piece (In my opinion____)

Activity Ideas:

-Build a sentence using notecards and sight words

• This is my go-to for beginning writers. This helps to solidify their understanding of concept of word.

-Read a nonfiction book, write about what you learned

• For advanced writers, create an All About Book and research something that interests them.

• For beginning writers, begin by drawing a picture to show what was learned, then write a simple sentence with help ( Dogs have 4 legs).

-Read a fictional story, write your own ending

-Choose your favorite character. Write a story about your day together (“One day, Elsa and I made a snowman…)

-Pick 3 random items in your house, write a story incorporating those items (“My dog was very hungry so he jumped on the counter and stole my apple! Thankfully, he didn’t think it tasted good so he decided to sleep on the couch.”)

-Plan an imaginary trip somewhere. What would you do? See? Eat?

-An adult or sibling tells the sentence for the student to write

-Sticker story!

• Choose a few stickers, draw a setting, write a story connecting the stickers together. This is one of my personal favorites.

-Anything! Be creative! Just keep writing 😊