Beginning Writers: FREE Story Starters
In Kindergarten, my students are now at the point where I am pushing them from the nest (so to speak) in regard to being brave about writing themselves. I begin the year by giving them a journal with prompts and asking them to answer a question based on the prompt. I then write whatever they say in a yellow highlighter under the picture they create. They trace the yellow highlighter to begin to learn about proper letter size and word spacing. In the next journal, I have them practice "near point copying" by writing their answer to prompts on a post-it note. They take it back to their seats and copy what I wrote for them into their journal.
Now, they are being asked to take everything they have learned about the writing process and phonics and put it together. I encourage them to use their phonetic spelling skills. I celebrate out loud with them when they are brave enough to try to spell something and get all the sounds correct in their word. For example, if a student writes this: I hav a gren bol (I have a green ball), I read it out loud (they get all impressed that I can read their writing correctly) and have the whole class clap for them. They get so excited, they start writing out another one!
The packet above takes you to a blog post I wrote about how to use those crazy squiggles to get your students to think creatively and begin writing. By clicking on the picture you will be taken to the post to read about how to use them and you can download all ten of them for FREE!!!
Getting young children confident with the writing process is so hard. What do you do to help your students gain that needed confidence?