Writing for Readers: Teaching Skills and Strategies

1. Writing for Readers:Teaching Skills and Strategies

2. Prior to now we have: • Reveled in approximations • Hidden our struggles to translate • Done anything to avoid the fact that the students work is unreadable

3. PART ONE: Inspiring Children to Write for Readers • Let students in on the “secrect” • Why might this be hard to read? • Let children know it is truly sad when you can not read their great stories • Help children yearn to want to write in a way so that other can read it

4. Active Engagement • Sort easy to read and non easy to read work “This is no time to feel bad. We’re at the very start of our unit and soon we’ll all write so people can read our writing.”

5. PART TWO: Recording Sounds, Words, Silences, and Meaning • Saying words slow, thinking of something I know, and rereading • Writing sight words fast • Using spaces “but you don’t need to put your finger down to measure it”

6. Dinner • Don’t do most of the work • Don’t talk too much • Reread with your finger • Watch how I reread with my finger • Now you do it • Allow approximation “Your message is, you can do this”

7. PART THREE: Focusing on High Frequency Words • 36 words • Teach how to use word parts • Personal word wall=word power “The truth is, growth is slow and involves two steps forward and on step backwards”

8. Active Engagement • Now that you know the word will.... • Turn and tell your partner

9. PART FOUR: Writing with Partners • Write so that your partner can read it • Being a good writing partner is an important job • Partners can look for missing spaces or words • Adding sounds • Spelling using the word wall • Punctuation

10. Pause????? “ A period is a dot that acts like a sign to my reader how to think like I did about my story. A period is a mark that tells readers that they need to stop and think for a second about the idea they just read before they go on to the next thought.”

11. Assessment • Which lens might you be looking through as you look at student work up to this point? • Turn and talk

12. PART FIVE: Preparing for Publication • Sorting work to select easy to read writing • Choose one easy to read piece • Time to confer: “ This will be the perfect opportunity to assess what children have learned throughout the unit. Notice what children are now able to see in their own writing, notice how they talk about it, and notice the number of ways they now know they can make their writing more readable.”