Writing Module: Read and Write Task

Read Task

Annotations for Examining the Effects of Preschool Writing Instruction on Emergent Literacy Skills: A Systematic Review of the Literature by Anna H. Hall, Amber Simpson, Ying Guo, and Shanshan Wang.

“Children want to write. They want to write the first day they attend school. This is no accident. Before they went to school they marked up walls, pavements, newspapers with
crayons, chalk, pens or pencils…anything that makes a mark. The child’s marks say, “I am.” (p. 3)

https://via.hypothes.is/https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=eugene_pubs

• Writing skills tend to appear at different rates for different children, along a developmental continuum.
• Through emergent writing, children use their current forms of writing, such as scribbles and letters to make a connection between patterns of familiar words.
• Children notice that print carries meaning and learn to write by being engaged in writing constantly.
• Children are not writing enough in preschool classrooms. Studies show preschool students tend to have only one minute of writing per day. What?!
• Preschool writing learning outcomes:

1. attitudes toward writing
2. engagment in writing
3. oral language skills
4. alphebet knowledge
5. concepts about print
6. phonological awareness
7. early writing skils

• Children need to be engaged in activities where they are free to interact with the writing process as well as having a teacher direct the writing process.
• One study shows that children whose play enviornment was supplemented with writing materials (ex. writing letters) and had no adult intervention showed significant differences in their writing behaviors.
• Another study showed that having adults model and support children in literacy rich enviornments was effective in help students engage in literacy based play.
• Use writing and drawing in music therapy ( drawing what they learned, journaling about songs) also helped student gain advances in their independent writing.
• Group writing or “share the pen” between a teacher and students showed significant differences in uppercase, lowercase and letter identification techniques.
• Another study, where students used multiple methods of writing their name (ex. signing in when coming into class) showed that students became more familar and made connections with well-known names.
• Children enrolled in the Head Start program were given handwriting interventions, called Handwriting Without Tears. These children scored higher on instruments measuring prewriting skills.
• Similarly, another group involved in a program called Fine Motor and Early Writing Pre-K Cirriculum used adapted writing tools (ex. writing letters with popsicle sticks) which showed improvments in handwriting skills.
• Conclusion: all in all the effectivness of writing instruction with and without adult involvment is apparent in these studies. Future research is needed in order to continue strengthening student’s writing skills in the preschool classroom.

Writing Task: Describe your writing curriculum.

A few strategies I will use in my writing curriculum include: 

• Allow students to engage in multiple modes of writing 
• Focus on handwriting techniques 
• Teach the importance of proper sentence structure
• Have writing supplies in clearly labeled spaces around the classroom
• Assign each student a writing folder to keep all their writing samples in

Activities I will use to support my writing curriculum: 

• Use write alouds frequently in the classroom by modeling my own writing on chart paper or the board. Write alouds help student see how to complete said writing activity (ex. focus on topics such transition words, details, introductions, conclusions) 
• Writing group stories where each student gets to write one sentence.
• Writing journals! A lot of teachers have silent reading time, but why not silent writing time? Use this time for students to free write or write about a specific prompt. 
• Write letters (ex. write letters to famous people in history that aligns with history lessons)
• Use story starters and let children finish the story themselves.