This activity is especially useful for introducing young children to daily writing in a safe and positive manner.









Enlist the help of your colleagues who teach from Pre-K to grade three in collecting samples of children's writing. Photocopy a collection from one year to use the following year. Note on the back of each piece what the writing is about, the audience, and purpose of the writing. Highlight for later use any special features of the writing upon which you will want to comment

Supporting Independent Writing

The activities described in this section are particularly useful in supporting development of the following English Language Arts objectives (Emerging Phase).

Students will:

• demonstrate emerging desire to express their ideas to teachers and peers in informal settings through speech, drawing, and print efforts.
• demonstrate awareness that print and symbols in their environments convey meaning.
• demonstrate increasing abilities to convey ideas using drawings, scribbles, symbols, letters, and/or letter-like shapes.
• develop emerging ability to identify an audience in writing
• develop emerging ability to identify the purpose for writing
• develop emerging ability to contribute ideas and language for collaborative compositions.

Writing Samples: We don't all write the same way!

This activity supports the following purposes:

• to encourage risk-taking and approximations within the writing processes used by young learners
• to increase sensitivity to the needs of others for support and encouragement, and to foster a community of writers
• to increase awareness of writing as meaning-making
• to increase awareness of writing as a process of problem solving.

• Samples of children's writing that include drawings; scribbles; letter-like shapes; random letters and numbers; combinations of drawings, scribbles, and letters; invented spelling, phonetic spelling, and conventional spelling; combinations of drawings, diagrams, and text.
• Overhead transparencies.

1. Make overhead transparencies of a sample of children's writing from the previous year.
2. Show the transparencies to the class during the first week of school. Tell students that they will all be writing each day and that their writing can take many forms.
3. Explain that when we write we are putting our ideas and stories down on paper (or other writing materials) in order that ourselves and other people will be able to read them. Ask children what kinds of writing they like to do and what writing their families do.
4. Discuss the many purposes for writing. For example, Sometimes we write to tell stories that other people might enjoy reading. Sometimes we write for our own enjoyment. People also use writing to help them remember things such as what groceries they need to buy or what jobs they need to do. Sometimes we write to help ourselves think or solve a problem. I like to write in a journal and describe things I have been doing, thinking about, or would like to do.
5. Explain (or remind, if you are working with older students) that people go through many stages when they learn to write just as they do when they learn to walk or talk. Show them some of the ways that children in their school wrote last year--making brief positive comments about each piece of writing in your collection. Stress the content and meaningfulness of the writing and the many ways that the authors found to convey their ideas. Tell them that if they write each day and have help from others, their writing will keep improving. The messages you want to convey include: I will value all your attempts to write. It is okay to use patterns like this (show a sample of scribbling) or invented spelling or drawings (show samples), and to share your ideas while you are learning more about making letters and ways to spell words. The important thing to begin with is to have something you want to say, and to try and find a way to say it. I will help and your friends in this room will help when you ask for help. You may need help with ideas, printing, or spelling. We will have many books and words around our room that will also help you.
6. Remind children that writers need a friendly place in which to write and lots of support and encouragement. Discuss things that would be helpful and things that would be hurtful to say about the writing of a classmate. You could give a quick writing demonstration by recording students' ideas on a chart and illustrating it with a happy and a sad face.
7. Give out small booklets or journals you have prepared (do not put too many pages in these first writing books). Show students your date stamp, invite them to fill a page with their own writing, and to come and stamp it with the date when they are finished. Show them that you have a booklet as well. Say, Let's all sit quietly for a minute and think about something we want to say and then let's all write something in our own style. You can start by making a picture of your ideas if you wish.
8. Cunningham (1995, p. 91) describes a technique called "Watch Me" in which a kindergarten teacher uses an overhead projector to demonstrate invented spelling for her students. The teacher draws a picture and writes a sentence under it using invented spelling--sounding out the words and writing the letters for the most prominent sounds. She explains that this is the way most children write when they first begin writing. She then writes the same sentence underneath it in conventional spelling and explains that this is the kind of writing adults do and the kind found in books. She then invites the children to draw a picture and write a sentence about it writing it at their particular level of development. She follows this by writing a sentence with conventional spelling on each child's paper. Teachers of young children may want to include this activity as part of the Writing Samples activity.
9. A caution about the use of invented spelling. Teachers have some valid concerns about the use of invented spelling. One such concern is that the incorrect spelling of some words may be repeated often enough that it will become a habit that will persist through the elementary grades. This is possible if children use invented spelling for frequently used words with irregular spelling patterns (such as they, want, and because).

Avoiding Misspelling of Frequently Used Words To avoid the habitual misspelling of frequently used words that have irregular spelling patterns, use the activities in this resource that focus on establishing these words as part of a child's sight vocabulary. Be sure to include the Frequently Used Words (p. 124) with irregular spelling patterns on your Word Wall (p. 122) and provide students with lots of "hands on", multi-sensory practice with them. This means using: a variety of materials with which to write or make these words (for example, magnetic letters, play dough, chalk, and small chalkboards) a variety of strategies to help students to learn the words (such as visualizing the words, spelling them out loud, clapping the syllables, making them with individual letter cards).