What Works in Teaching–Vocabulary
01 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in What Works Tags: teaching writing, writing with a purpose
What Works is to . . .
Relate vocabulary words to what children already know and to experiences children are already familiar with.
Credits
Quickies on What Works in Teaching — adprima.com/whatworks.htm
Image — WP Clipart.com
“The Perfect Storm” — 6 Free (PDF) Magazines for Kids
13 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in FreeBEE$
The Perfect Storm — from Cricket Magazine.
6 Free issues of great content & activities takes an exciting look at extreme weather and much more.
Download all 6 magazines as one PDF or as separate issues.
Writing with a Purpose: Introduction to Purpose
30 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
(Home) Educators, teach your students to ask themselves: “Why am I writing?” “What is my goal or my purpose for writing?”
Of course, students may have such thoughts anyway but probably with a bit of angst about how they will be graded or how a particular writing assignment will help them in life.
Teach students the real purpose of writing—that it is not about “getting the assignment over with” or getting a good grade, or even pleasing the teacher.
Writing’s real purpose is in being able to effectively communicate to a specific audience. And understanding that purpose makes students better writers.
Previously, What Works in Teaching–Writing with a Purpose
Sources/Bibliography:
Colorado State University Writing Studio, http://writing.colostate.edu/index.cfm
Writing with a Purpose, by James M. McCrimmon, published by Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
What Works in Teaching–Writing with a Purpose
28 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in What Works Tags: teaching writing, writing with a purpose
What Works is to . . .
Provide students with a clear sense of purpose for any writing assignment.
This leads to more student-interest and better quality writing.
Credits
Quickies on What Works in Teaching — adprima.com/whatworks.htm
Image — WP Clipart.com
Signs of Struggle in Children with Writing Disabilities
22 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in How To Teach Writing, Learning Disabilities
Writing requires skills and development in many areas of functioning not specific to writing.
“Often, children with writing disabilities have no trouble forming coherent and creative thoughts, but the graphomotor, grammatical, and structural aspects of writing may require so much effort and concentration that their best ideas never get recorded.”
The following website has a list of some of the milestones expected of developing writers and signs of struggle.
Student Writing: Drafting, Revising, and Editing
20 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
Composing the First Draft
Students write their first drafts after they have planned what to write. They form sentences and paragraphs about the ideas they generated and organized in the pre-writing activities.
Students work independently while the teacher observes and offers help as needed.
Revising
Once the first draft is finished, students need to revise their work. This is where they focus on whether or not the content of their writing makes sense. “It means removing a perfectly good sentence because it doesn’t belong, adding details or clarification, tightening our language”. Here is an excellent article on revising: Teaching Revision.
Editing
In the editing phase, students are checking for spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation mistakes. Read over Teaching Editing for some teaching strategies.
More Writing Resources:
West Virginia Department of Education
The ABCs of the Writing Process
The Writing Process: How Kindergarteners Brainstorm/Prewrite
12 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
The first stage of the writing process involves prewriting which includes brainstorming. Prewriting activities help students come up with ideas about what and how to write.
Kindergarten students commonly engage in drawing, scribbling, and invented spelling as brainstorming/prewriting techniques. It’s is a legitimate stage of writing development for them so do not attempt to suppress or alter this behavior. They will grow out of it.
The Writing Process: Printables, Posters, Signs
07 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in How To Teach Writing, Posters, Signs
Teach your students the writing process. Remind them of each step with classroom posters available for printing at any of the links below.
Print on regular copy paper or on pre-decorated printer paper available at most Dollar Tree stores. Laminate or put in a sheet protector and hang up. Students can also keep these in their writing notebooks.
ReadThinkWrite.org
Steps of the writing process
www.scribd.com
Questions for students to consider during each step
Google docs – LiteracyByDesign
Writing process sign plus teaching tips
Google docs – Greenville.k12.sc.us
Writing process plus explanation of each step
FlipFlopTeacher.blogspot (early education level writing process posters)
Zebra, Polka Dot, Primary Colors Polka Dot
ShenanigansInSecond.blogspot.com
Short and sweet posters
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