Ch.17 Lessons From Kindergarten

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Ch.17 Lessons From Kindergarten
Shannon Vanderhorst Debra Zamot
Kindergarten Writing Workshops solid structure
grounded in teacher consistency, predictability,
and active involvement.
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• Time
• Blend Read aloud time and the beginning of
  writing workshop with brief mini lesson.
• Children move to tables to begin drawing.
• Writing lasts about 10 to 15 minutes. At first it
  will be slow from mini lesson through sharing in
  half an hour.
• Teacher allows 1or 2 kids to share until
  everyone has gone.

• Materials
• Unlined paper with different types of textures
• Crayons
• Pencils without erasers

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• Conferences
• Work with children briefly.
• Focus on developing the how and getting ideas
  on paper.
• Teacher must read the child to know when to back
  off.

• Kindergarten Mini Lessons
• Must be short! Short daily lessons are essential
  in Kindergarten.
• Focus on lesson teaching with examples rather
  than explanations.
• Writing demos good because children learn by
  watching others then try for themselves.
• Vary the lessons.

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• Revision
• Re-seeing, rethinking, what one has written and
  making appropriate changes in content to clarify
  ideas in writing.
• Makes ideas on paper reflect intended meaning.
• Process over product.
• Teacher interest in childs writing leads to
  improved writing skills.

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• Publishing
• Less amount of revision and editing than older
  kids.
• Depends on experience level of the class.
• Every child should feel confident as a writer
  before creating a published product.
• May be frustrating to some.
• Make process a celebration!

Writing Leads to Reading How does writing lead
to reading? What are some topics you can
incorporate into writing and reading activities
in the classroom? How would you incorporate them
in your classroom? Lets discuss!!!
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Ch.18 Reading Writing In Math, Science
Social Studies
Writing to think and learn children must
reflect, inquire, investigate, gather
information, and explore ideas.

• Guidelines for approaching curricular studies
• Raising questions is an important beginning
  questions that lead to other directions more
  important than the actual answers.

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• Writing for purpose of thinking and exploring is
  a key component everyone explores the same
  topic. Different from workshop writing in that
  it is a log of open ended discussions. Writing
  is initially not revised or edited.
• Childrens literature contributes to
  investigation teacher reads books then compares
  information in books and author's perspective
  questioning the facts.

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• Writing to communicate information to other
  audiences children select aspects of these
  topics for writing in writers workshop. Teacher
  asks students to write a focused piece in their
  logs. Helps children synthesize a broad range of
  info raise new questions.

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• Talk is a key component through all of this
  learning talk after writing in logs as you
  read books to question, speculate, predict,
  confirm, clarify, and wonder. Teacher conference
  with kids as they write. Workshop provides a
  strong foundation for children to talk about
  topics. Talk between children and teacher is
  crucial in thinking and learning.

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Activity
Avery says that , Reading and writing and
talking and listening really are tools for
learning, regardless of the topic. At your
tables, discuss a way to integrate reading and
writing with either Math, science, or social
studies.