The best of both

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Home : 2004 : October : 3

The best of both
By Sharon D. W-L

It was pointed out to me that in Reading Recovery the students do not use lined paper and these are first graders. I use both.

For our first few months of writing I set up plan paper booklets for drawing and writing
stories. These are writing block books (not journals). We also label the pictures with a sound we hear. This way they are hopefully focusing on the sounds and letters and not worrying about if it is made correctly or not. As well if they say that a fish starts with k and I have not covered the sound of "f" and "k" they I say great print it on your paper beside the fish! I don't want

them to feel afraid to make a guess and some do make that kind of a guess. A guess is better to me then no mark on their paper.

However I also do "printing journals" and this is where neatness and correct letter fomation is the focus. Boring I know but it does need to be done because w/o the experience with this and writing sentences then they will have a harder time writing on their own - I think. (this was explained to me by the Blended Sound and Sight Program.) The catch for me is trying to find the balance between the boring tasks of tracing and copying and then writing independently.

It really depends on your class and the expereinces they have had before. I teach 1st grade and most of mine are bottom up printers so we are going slow and starting over to learn to print corectly, however I also make a big deal about writing block time too. It is not a spelling test and as long as they can read it or tell me what is in their picture then that is great! I also print things for them in pink or orange but then I have them trace it in pencil so that they own it. My grade one teacher did that for me - where she wrote out a senetnce to match my picture in pen. I'm just taking it on step further by having a child trace it. By the way I don't do that for everyone each day. I focus of a few each day or there are those that need more support then others.

As a first grade teacher with K kids coming in from a half time program I would assume that blank paper would be used most of the time but that at least before the end of the year focus would be on the letter formations - correctly. I trust that K teachers are teaching the letter names and sounds and letter sound combinations before placing too much focus on the corect formation.

I use Jolly Phonics and I know that the JP program says do not teach the names but that does not help me meet the needs of my students... What letter makes the sound at the beginning of dog? The child needs to tell me a letter name - any letter name to get started writing.

By the way when we start our journal just before Halloween I do use 1/2 and 1/2 notebooks with a blank space to draw and label a picture and a lined section where they will copy off the board and then fill it in with their own ending or pick an ending from a list we generate as a class.

sdwl