Barbara & Sue

(Sample Lesson - RW3)
Systematic Activities to Boost Writing Skills
by Barbara Gruber, M.A. & Sue Gruber, M.A.
Copyrighted Mateial

Lesson 3 Build Confidence and Foster Writing Success

What's Ahead in this Lesson?
In this lesson, we'll focus on ways to jumpstart writing so children can write independently. We'll show you sure-fire ways to support young writers so no one says, "I can't think of anything to write." Your students will have a goldmine of words and ideas. They will be warmed up and ready to write independently.

Introduction
In this lesson, we provide step-by-step ways to help you get the young writers in your room going! We included a formula for writing that can be used again and again to give children the boost they need to write independently. A variety of quick and easy writing activities are included that involve just writing a sentence or two a day!

Develop a Roomful of Confident Writers

To become skilled readers, children need to:
1. read more
2. engage in discussions.

To become skilled writers, children must:
1. spend more time thinking and talking before writing
2. write more often.

The writing-together activities described in Lesson 2 help children gain confidence as writers. Writing together is an activity that supports young writers and gives teachers opportunities to model writing. Continue to engage your students in writing-together and individual writing activities, as described in this lesson, all through the year.

Topics for Writing

Things We Know About
The easiest topic for anyone to write about is something they have actually experienced. Children can write about the time they rode on a train for the first time because they remember the experience and the feelings they had. They can reflect and bring forth ideas and feelings to incorporate into their writing. By contrast, when children are asked to write about "a magic pencil that comes to life" they must create all the ideas from scratch. They have no experiences or feelings upon which to build the story. Children write best when they write about day to day experiences and events from their own lives.

Provide Spelling Help & Foster Independence
Some children let difficulties with spelling bring their writing to a halt. When they are unsure how to spell a word, they stop writing. Then, they usually go to the teacher for help. When children instantly go to the teacher every time they need help spelling a word they tend to lose momentum. After getting help, they often have trouble resuming the flow of writing. We have three strategies children can use that let them continue writing. We believe all three of these strategies also foster independence and problem-solving skills. Give children these tools to use when they encounter words they can't spell:

1. Underline it!
Have children write words they aren't sure how to spell the way they think they are spelled and then underline them. Tell them they can keep on writing and get help later with the underlined words. Circulate around the room as children write and help children who have underlined words on their papers.

2. Try it!
Take a minute to think about how you try and figure out how to spell words that you are unsure about. Do you run to the dictionary the minute you need help spelling a word? We bet you do what most people do-jot the word on scratch paper a few times until it "looks" right. Why not teach children this valuable method? Tell children to write the word on a scratch paper and then look at it. They should ask themselves if the word looks right? They might want to spell it two or three ways on the scratch paper until they get it right. If they still are unsure, they can underline it and check it later.

3. Word Walls
Word Walls are a source of spelling help for children. Here's an easy way to help children really use your word walls! If children have difficulty locating words on the word wall, number the words. When a child asks you for a word that is on the wall, you can say, "It's number 22." Then, he'll be able to quickly locate it.

4. Word Books
This is our favorite way of providing help with spelling. In addition to spelling help, using word books encourages children to be less dependent on teachers for spelling help. Each student can have a "word book" with approximately 35 pieces of lined paper. Spiral notebooks are perfect to use as word books. Children label the upper right hand corner of the first page with the letter "a." Children continue labeling pages so they have a page for each letter of the alphabet. There are extra pages that can be used for word lists or activities. On the last page of the book, children label the page "Try it!"

How to use word books:
When you introduce new words to add to the word wall, you can have children write the words on the appropriate pages in their word books.

Children can enter their weekly spelling words into their word books writing words on pages according to their beginning letters.

You have reviewed part of Lesson 3. The lesson continues with ideas to help teachers everywhere. There are a total of 9 lessons in this course

Barbara Gruber, M.A. & Sue Gruber, M.A.
Course Developers and Instructors