First graders have been working on writing in a variety of ways this school year. One way we practice writing is through a Writer’s Workshop (keep an eye on the blog for a future post about writers workshop!) Today we started our first Writer’s Workshop unit on Personal Narratives.
As young writers, it is important that we keep in mind that learning to write works the same way as learning to talk. At times the meaning may be hard to determine. Yet, we are over joyed with their first attempts.
I invite my students to use their voices in their writing, even if they cannot spell all of the words correctly. I give them the freedom to use invented spelling and to say what they mean. When we support and applaud their best attempts, we see their writing take off!
Do we have time to teach spelling, grammar, punctuation, and handwriting? Absolutely! We do this during whole group instruction, our weekly spelling assessments, morning work, and individual conferences. I select one or two teaching points that are within your child’s writing development and support them as they take on this new skill.
My goal in sharing my thoughts with you on this blog post is to encourage you to share in your child’s joy of writing. This will be an amazing year of growth for your writer! The skills will come with time. Just remember… We learn to write by writing 🙂
