Kindergartners Write Every Day!

Denver Public Schools and Colorado content standards require that kindergartners develop phonemic awareness and master the concepts of print in order to become readers and writers. I believe that a daily writing time in kindergarten is a powerful literacy practice to meet these standards.

So, in my half-day kindergarten session at Park Hill School of International Studies, I have implemented daily writing time, which is based on five goals or understandings.

First, young children need to play with mapping sounds onto spoken language by writing about topics of their own choosing in a risk-free environment with high levels of supports and challenges. Kids learn to write by writing. Why? Because this enables young children to see themselves as purposeful writers who have something important to communicate to the world. The first part of this writing task is composing, i.e., generating topics and ideas with teacher assistance and using an emerging sense of voice based on oral language structures (from Scaffolding Young Writers, by Dorn and Soffos, chapter one).

Second, in addition to composing, children have to learn the mechanical skills of transcribing their message (Dorn and Soffos, chapter one). They have to stretch out the word, listen for sounds, identify the letter that represents that sound, attend to letter formation, and then finally write the letter on paper, paying attention to early concepts of print (spacing, directionality, etc.). Yet, as they watch the teacher model this process, and hear those around them during writing workshop doing this process, they begin doing it for themselves. Why? In fact, they are actually internalizing the phonics or sounds of the language, encoding them in their memory banks. Then as they go to written text to begin to read, those encoded sounds will be there to decode! Kids learn to read by writing.

Third, young children need to see varied and frequent demonstrations of the writing process by their teacher in a whole-class setting. Why? Because they need to have the thinking processes and knowledge of writing explicitly modeled and validated as a crucial part of their classroom culture. Kids learn to write by observing authentic demonstrations of both composing and transcribing by the teacher.

Fourth, kindergartners need to have focused guided writing instruction based on their individual strengths, what they are approximating, and their next steps to move forward. Why? Because masterful teaching is born out of the teaching/learning cycle when we as educators are “in love” with gathering authentic assessment information about individual children and then planning powerful teaching that will accelerate growth. Kids learn to write when we teach them where they are.

Finally, young children need to share their writing in various ways for various purposes. Why? If their written words aren’t spoken and heard daily, young children will fail to learn the purpose of writing, i.e., to communicate, even if just to ourselves! By hearing the writing of others, they get inspired with new ideas. Kids learn to write by sharing.

This exhibit shows my use of Daily Writing Time in my classroom and its power in helping children learn to communicate.

Goal:

Students will see themselves as writers who have voices to be shared with the world by writing and sharing every day.

Objectives:

The student will:

1. observe and participate in modeled and shared writing daily, receiving explicit instruction in the writing process: composing, transcribing, revising, and editing.
2. understand the process of composing (writing fluency) by generating topics or ideas with teacher support using their writer's voice based on oral language rereading for meaning as they write.
3. understand the process of transcribing by sounding out words and learning sound/symbol relationships through daily practice using resources (sound card).
4. learn transcribing through the concepts of print: spacing, directionality, return sweep, punctuation, beginning capitalization and appropriate use of upper and lower case letters.
5. revise by adding on to original writing, edit by trying out letters and experimenting with recording new words.
6. reread their own writing to one adult and one child daily and listen to the writing of others, giving feedback.
7. publish writing using technology monthly for authentic audiences, using different genres.

• Be able to hold pencil to write letters, positioning body and other hand to support this task.
• Have an awareness of some letter names and some sounds.
• Have phonemic awareness of rhyming and playing with language by orally changing beginnings and endings of words.
• Have an emerging awareness that print contains meaning.
• Have beginning skills with input devices:
  1. Use the mouse to select, double click to open.
  2. Keyboarding skills (Apple-Q to quit, Apple-P to print)
  3. Demonstrate positive social behavior when using technology by not touching the keyboard and interfering with someone else’s work (e.g., pushing print on someone else’s keyboard).

I set up my writing time right after morning meeting as the first task that we did each day. We began with a whole group mini-lesson for 10 minutes. I strongly believe that our students need to see us authentically think out loud as we go through the writing process in front of them. This means I brought an idea, but had not actually done the writing yet.

My modeling needed to be spontaneous and genuine, not preplanned and contrived. I needed to model not fluent writing but rather emergent writing mirroring for my kindergartners the kinds of issues they were struggling with and possible strategies to solve them.

For example, mini-lessons covered issues from a kindergartner’s point of view, such as: What do I do if I don’t know the sound to write? How do I think of ideas to write about? How does adding detail to my picture help me make my story better? Why do I need spaces? These mini-lessons were revealed as I watched the kinds of issues they were struggling with as they put pencil to paper.

Mini-lessons need to be balanced between composing and transcribing skills. What we model and focus on in individual conferences with our students will impact their theories of writing. In chapter one of their book, Scaffolding for Young Writers , Dorn and Soffos give examples of two different students. The first student believes that writing is about neat handwriting and perfect spelling. Her piece lacks emotion and depth. In contrast, the second child is sharing a relevant and meaningful event using sentence structure that matches her oral language. Her theory about writing is that she has a significant message to convey. In the midst of that task she uses strategies to solve unknown words and does not just write words she can spell. Like this second student, I want my students to be able to balance composing authentic pieces with the mechanics of transcribing their messages.(More on mini-lessons below and under the Assessment section).

Next was the students' work period which started the year at twenty minutes and extended to 40-45 minutes by the end of the year for some writers. Closure to our writing time came after our centers period about 30 minutes later. This consisted of a 10-minute sharing routine which we called "The Guest Teacher" which is described on the next page. The step-by-step details of transitions between these activities, as well as literacy materials utilized and room arrangement issues, are addressed under the section entitled Step Guides.

I began by modeling in my own writing book, which I made out of chart paper folded in the middle to make a large version of a writing book like their smaller ones. I used magnetic clips to attach it to the dry-erase board on my chart stand. Also on the board were our sound card, the high-frequency words, and the diagraphs which I added in the second semester.

I began each day by writing the date at the top of the page. This practice of dating our work was crucial in documenting growth over the year.

Next, I counted up 10 lines from the bottom and drew a line across so that I could draw my ideas above the line and write my sounds below the line.

Then I thought aloud about my topic, drew my picture, and did my writing using the same sound card that they would use when it was their turn to write. These steps were the same steps I expected them to follow as they did their writing during work period.

This video clip was filmed in March. Consequently, I am using lots of sounds, although still not all of them, because neither are my students.

I had written my plan the day before, so I am thinking aloud about what I already wrote in order to get ready to finish the piece. At the beginning of the clip, I am doing what I call "kinesthetic spelling," making motions for each letter in a high-frequency word, based on whether it is a tall letter (clapping over the head) , middle-sized letter (snapping fingers at the waist) or under-the-line letter (moving one hand down the other arm going in a downward direction). I do this kind of spelling with the high-frequency words which often are difficult to sound out. This large muscle movement helps the children get a visual image of the shape of the word. As I write, I elicit their help in finding the sounds that I need by singing the sounds on the sound card

I highly recommend inventing a simple song that the children can access to find the picture and corresponding sound that they need. Often, my students could be heard singing the sound card as they worked on writing what they wanted to say.

(See other sample mini-lessons for whole group instruction in the Assessment section).

Diamone and Juwan are discussing ideas to write about. This kind of accountable talk needs to be explicitly taught through modeling, rehearsal and reflection at the beginning of the year.

Attribute charts describing what listening and sharing looks and sounds like need to be created with your classroom community (e.g., sitting knee to knee and eye to eye, responding with appropriate body language like leaning in, nodding, showing appropriate emotions to what is being said, asking specific questions to help the speaker go deeper in his/her thinking, giving specific compliments, etc.) When you take the time to build respectful listening and speaking routines, they can then be used throughout the day, during any kind of curricula.

As the children were getting started with the date and page set-up ( see Step Guides ), I walked around helping children link their talk with what they were going to write about. When Marissa and Sammy were discussing their loose teeth and wiggling them together, this became a wonderful topic for writing. When JaeDon sat with a very mad expression on his face, this emotion became a Mad Poem.

We write about what we know and what is important to us. As teachers, we have to constantly model this in our own life and guide them to make this connection to writing whenever it comes up during the day in the life of the classroom. This cognitive task is called composing. Composing involves not only generating topics and ideas but also holding the language in memory while transcribing the message, returning to the beginning of the sentence by rereading to remember the next word, and basing the message on oral language (Dorn and Soffos, Scaffolding Young Writers , chapter one).

Children need to use their oral language to expand their ideas. Then they need support and permission to decide the one thing that they want to get down on paper. For emergent writers it is immensely easier to talk than to write! They need to feel empowered to choose one part of their story to transcribe.

Transcribing is a very complicated process for emergent writers. They actually have to internalize how to use sounds to say the meaningful messages they want to write. They have to say words slowly, hear the sounds and then record them, not necessarily in sequential order, while attending to the letter formation. This is called encoding. They decode that same sound as they reread in the act of composing.

The sound card is a powerful resource for this complicated task of encoding, and Deshon uses it beautifully as he maps his story onto the page.

Additionally, as emergent writers learn to transcribe they have to pay attention to the early concepts of print (directionality, spacing, beginning capitalization and punctuation, return sweep).

After finishing his/her daily writing, each student was required to reread his/her work to one adult and one other student. I learned about this practice and its importance after attending a session on writing by Karen Herr, another NBCT in a nearby district. She also contributed the "Guest Teacher" routine described in the next section.

Since I only met with a group of six daily, I worked feverishly at the beginning of the year to recruit adult volunteers to come in during our writing time. Along with my literacy paraprofessional, I had one other adult daily to facilitate this activity. I recruited my students' parents, senior citizens, and my own mother. The volunteer's first job was to write the date and transcribe what the child had written that day. This activity gave each student a chance to reread pointing to what had been written as well as to have a daily audience for his/her writing. Over time, some of my volunteers also began recording specific skills the child demonstrated, and a few actually chose teaching points to teach.

Then each child needed to find a classmate and share what he/she had written that day. If the writing had included a certain classmate in the story, then that person was the preferred audience!

The "Guest Teacher" routine (contributed by Karen Herr, NBCT, Jefferson County Schools, Colorado) created a way to allow children to share new understandings about writing with the entire group. Unlike an "author’s chair," when anyone who writes gets to share, this routine was directed by the teacher and focused on one child, or occasionally two, who were demonstrating something interesting or new in their writing.

Each Guest Teacher sat in the teacher’s chair and “taught” the other children by sharing what they had written. At the beginning of the year, the Guest Teachers showed how they could write sounds and leave spaces and choose topics.

The movie shows two examples of Guest Teachers taken in the spring. I chose them because the children were both using writing to deal with emotional issues. Imahd was leaving our classroom for a different school the next day. Imhad and Maggie are actually sharing at the beginning of our writing time, because we had run out of time for closure the day before. I am using their writing as an inspiration for topics for today's writing period coming up. JaeDon shared his poem about his grandma who had just died, and he had been out of school for two weeks.

I wanted to demonstrate to my students that writing wasn’t just about describing our lives, but, in fact, could help us make sense of our lives.

Please see the Month by Month Writing Activities below.

After spending the fall months establishing daily writing routines and habits, I was ready to begin publishing after winter break. I wanted to post their writing in the hall for their parents to enjoy during an upcoming event. I asked each child to select a favorite piece and mark it with a sticky note. Then we moved up to the computer lab to beginning the publishing process. Referring to their original writing, they redrew their pictures and than added the text that accompanied it.

The last step was to read their work to an adult. Then the adult retyped their story using conventional spelling in a smaller font directly underneath the original. This process is called “underwriting” and was described by Feldgus and Cardonick in their book, Kid Writing . Underwriting permits people who don’t know how to decipher kindergarten spelling to get meaning from their text. Parents delight in seeing their children’s approximations in the complex task of writing, but do need the translation to fully appreciate their efforts.

Maggie is reproducing her Garfield story (i.e., “Last night Garfield slept with me”) by redrawing her picture and typing the words that tell her story. When she reflected on the process she said that she had to “concentrate” to draw the picture and that when she typed the words, “The letters just show up instead of you trying to make the letter the right way.” I had not considered the possibility that typing might actually seem easier to some of my kindergartners than the fine motor task of hand-writing the words!

Functional writing which tells people things and gives them directions comes very naturally in kindergarten; we had been labeling things and writing notes to people since the beginning of the year.

In February, I decided to model sharing something that I knew a lot about in my writing. I wrote directions for how to make sand candles, having recently made some during winter break on the beach in Mexico. Immediately, some students were inspired to teach the rest of us something that they had experienced and knew a lot about. As they finished writing their directions, I worked with them individually on our classroom computers in KidPix Deluxe™ showing them how to make a list so that they could type their directions. Then I did the underwriting where it was necessary.

Next, we printed out the text and my reading assistant helped each student cut out the steps and glue them in order on a poster. The last step was to illustrate each step.

Eventually, 20 out of 22 students did this activity, teaching the rest of us about many interesting things such as how to fold a napkin, make waffles, make oatmeal, draw a tree, and clean your room.

Diamone, who had lots of pets at home, decided to teach us how to clean out a guinea pig cage. She added detail to her original text as she typed, expanding it. She used the space bar and return key easily as she worked.

In March, I realized that some of my more fluent writers needed a challenge, so I decided to introduce the basic story structure of beginning, middle, and end by making my own version of a "Tacky the Penguin" story. We had been enjoying "Tacky the Penguin" stories as a part of our Antarctica unit.

Subsequently, for my mini-lesson I modeled making three sketches, one for the beginning, middle, and end thinking aloud about my ideas. I did not share all of them because I wanted to keep my students anticipating.

The next day I did the writing for the three sketches. It is important to give students the idea that they can work on a piece for more than one day. Next year, I think I need to model and value this practice earlier in the year.

Six children immediately decided that they wanted to write "Tacky the Penguin" stories too, so the next day I pulled them into a group, and reviewed how to use the sketches to map out your ideas before you start to write This self-selected group was made up of my best writers as well as my least mature writer. They wrote their versions in their writing books first. Then I helped them publish by working with two students at a time on our classroom computers. I introduced five of them to Appleworks™ showing them how to scroll down and get another page for the next section of their story. These writers wrote three-page “Tacky the Penguin” stories, while my lowest writer wrote a one-page story that he published in KidPix Deluxe™.

"Fairness" is not every student doing the same thing, but, rather, every student getting what he/she needs to succeed.

Deshon and Dylan were publishing their words in Appleworks™, scrolling down to start another page of their story. Deshon sounded out each word again as he wrote, while Dylan trusted his original text and just copied. After they finished typing, I added any underwriting that was necessary to preserve meaning, we printed out the pages, and the students illustrated their stories.

April is the month to hatch chickens in kindergarten. As we anticipated their arrival, I did a mini-lesson of writing a speech bubble of what a chick might be saying as it waited to get out of its shell-- calling this “chick-chat.” This idea came from Feldgus and Cardonick’s book, Kid Writing, page 88. Then we brainstormed and discussed lots of different phrases they might be saying.

During our work periods over the next few days, the students wrote their chick-chat and we took turns sharing during Guest Teacher Time.

At the end of the week, we went to the computer lab to publish in KidPix Deluxe™, with adults doing the underwriting. We posted our chick-chat on the wall over our incubator. Before long, we were overjoyed with the arrival of three chicks, named Fireball, Dr. Doolittle and Angel, named by the kindergartners, of course!

Printing is very exciting to kindergartners. Kalere eagerly showed me her finished product after she printed when we were publishing in the computer lab.

In May I followed the sequence and used the resources provided in Regie Routman’s Writing Poetry in Kindergarten . She includes poetry written by kindergartners and weaves these poems into her mini-lessons. Some of my mini-lessons included reading and discussing poems written by other kindergartners. I rewrote them on chart paper so that my students could read them along with me as a shared text, thinking out loud to write my own poem, and doing a shared writing where the students helped me and we wrote a poem together. Soon my students were eager to try writing poetry!

Every day we delighted in 3-4 new poems written by our classmates and we inspired each other with new ideas. I published their poems on chart paper, just like I had written the ones out of the book.

Some children were interested in publishing their poems on the computer in KidPix Deluxe™. Then we glued their typed text onto the chart paper copy along with an illustration. Parents were delighted with our Poetry Corner as well as all our published writing on display during student-led conferences (personal narratives, directions, and speech bubbles of chick-chat). There are specific examples under the section entitled Student Work .

Kalere and Cal were publishing their poems on the computer. I helped them explore the poetry format by using the return key, space bar, and putting in capitals only when they decided capitals were necessary to convey their meanings. I did not make spelling corrections in their text, because I wanted to preserve the voice in their writing. I did use underwriting if the meaning was unclear.