Start Writing!
“I believe in using mentor texts as a shared reading experience to model and discuss what writers do.” ~ Kelly Adams (kindergarten teacher extraordinaire)
Welcome back to a new school year. We hope that everyone had an enjoyable and eventful summer. One of the things we always look forward to as educators is to hear the awesome stories that our students have to tell about their summer and throughout the school year. These stories are often our way into teaching our students about the craft of writing.
One would think that it would be simple for the students to verbally tell their story and then write it down on paper. In reality it is not that easy. As adults, it is second nature for us to move through the writing process. We have had years of practice--not so for our students.
“What is writing? We might define it as the skill of writing down particular words, in a particular order, to create particular effects” (Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001). We utilize the Writing Workshop model in our classrooms. We use mentor text (picture books, magazine articles, blogs, etc.) as models for our students to emulate. We talk about what we will write to rehearse before we begin. Through this we teach writing strategies and gradually release students to write independently. And when our students finish a writing piece, we share their creative work. This process is repeated throughout the year as we develop the creative process and support our polar bears as authors.
We encourage families to join us in the endeavour to support our polar bear authors at home. Encourage every opportunity for your child to write. They can help write shopping lists, send “real letters” to relatives and friends, and, of course, write thank-you notes when they receive gifts. Below are a list of resources to offer many other ideas to support writing at home.