Engaging Young Writers

This week I was lucky enough to visit Robyn at Russell Street to observe and discuss her writing program. There was some fantastic learning taking place! 

Rob had her students focus on two independent tasks: Lucky dip story and word power. 

The Lucky dip activity involved students picking a laminated picture of their choice, drawing a picture and writing about it. This gave them freedom of expression, encouraged creativity and a lot of autonomy over what they could write about. 

Word power used different sight words around the classroom. Both of these activities would be particularly useful for ESOL and my small writing groups. 

Usually at the beginning of a literacy lesson Rob has students use a whiteboard to write their name and other ideas so they are actively involved in the writing process. They then work on a shared piece of writing in a big modelling book. 

Before starting she likes to warm up with Eric Carle alphabet cards and ask the students 'what letter?' Or 'what sound?' 

She felt that many students lacked knowledge of rhymes and had little experience with nursery rhymes so she incorporates this in her program where ever possible. She also uses songs effectively to engage students and get them to hear different sounds and rhyme e.g. I am Robin, I am Jamie..

After doing the date together she starts to draw a picture and the students discuss it and ask questions, perhaps asking what it could be. These are then expanded on as students write their ideas as well. 

Having a picture on the board to discuss was a successful way to write together. Rob felt a great way to promote positive writing and sharing of ideas was to enlarge the students own writing and then have their peers reflect on it in a small group. 

Their work was then displayed together on the wall. Students felt really proud of their work and the prestige of having work on the wall really helped students to value writing. It had the added bonus of being easily shared with parents. Putting this on Seesaw is also another awesome way to share learning with a wider audience. At the end of the shared writing they have a quick fire writing session using the white boards with a time limit of 2 to 3 minutes. Students were then encouraged to write what they could manage in that time frame. 

Rob puts a focus on recounts and looks at draft writing and reworking to focus on aspects such as word families, chunks, blends, full stops and capital letters. Publishing work is something she felt really was a waste of learning time compared to the learning involved in draft editing. 

The 'perfect person' of the day then wrote some of the ideas alongside Rob. 

I loved how Robin had identified her students reluctance to share their own work but that they were happy to work on their peer's work together. She had also effectively used Seesaw to share her students work with their whanau. I'm looking forward to adapting some of Rob's ideas for my students next year!