Research shows that students are highly motivated to write when they write their own stories in a journal. The journal provides the teacher a very effective and relevant way to reinforce phonics and other concepts of writing. Furthermore, the writing and reading processes complement each other. Children’s reading skills improve as they learn to write because they are focusing greater attention on concepts of print such as reading/writing left to right and top to bottom. Writing Workshop is an important component of a balanced literacy program.

Students engage in writing on a daily basis in our classroom, because the more opportunity children have to write, the better their writing will become. Parents are highly encouraged to volunteer their time to assist during Writing Workshop. Your help is needed and appreciated.

Writing Workshop begins with a mini-lesson that focuses on one skill such as writing left to right, leaving spaces between words or slowly sounding out the words. I use samples from the children’s own writing of the previous day to help me choose the skill we need to work on. We practice and review a lot. During shared and interactive writing, when we write as a group, I demonstrate many writing procedures including brainstorming by thinking aloud.

Next, children draw a picture and tell the story about it to me, the aide, or a parent volunteer. Then the child writes the story receiving a lot of help with sounding out. The adult guides the student by asking questions such as "What sound do you hear at the beginning?" and "What letter makes that sound?" Children are encouraged to use developmental spelling as they practice sounding out the words. They are allowed to use "the magic line", a blank line children use in place of a letter/sound they don’t know. The adult writes the "book writing" way underneath the child’s spelling. During Writing Workshop different students may be on different steps of the writing process. Some may be drawing, others brainstorming, writing, or conferencing with an adult. The children also create and publish many little books and class books. These often become the children’s favorite books to read.

I do occasionally take dictation from students in order to capture the children’s rich, detailed stories. Last year the children dictated wonderful stories based on the premise of the time the "Cat in the Hat" came to their house. Sometimes we use a story starter to get them going. The story starter might be a repetitive phrase such as "I Can" to create a predictable story. Mostly, I encourage the children to do the actual writing. I want them to feel confident of themselves as writers. I can accomplish this best by giving them all the support, praise and help they need as they write.

As a parent you can help by encouraging your child to write birthday cards, thank you cards, grocery lists, notes for the frig, and write a book to read to their sibling or grandparent. As your child writes, teach him to slowly say each sound part of a word not each individual letter.

Children at all developmental stages benefit from journal writing. Each child is able to progress at his own pace. Take a look at the following samples from former students as they created class books about ducks and butterflies. You will be able to observe the different stages of emergent writing, from scribbles and drawing, to sounding out one word and writing multiple sentences. See the photos at the bottom of this page for real samples. For more information about children’s writing processes and Writing Workshop, I recommend the books Kid Writing by Eileen Feldgus and Isabell Cardonick and Getting the Most Out of Morning Message and Other Shared Writing Lessons by Carleen DaCruz Payne and Mary Browning.

Click HERE to read a detailed article about literacy development posted at the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory site.

Click HERE to read a list of reading accomplishments at 3 through four years of age.

Click HERE to read a list of reading accomplishments at the Kindergarten level.

For parents click HERE for a Family Growth chart of activities to promote literacy. For a Spanish version click HERE.

Graves (1983) describes five general stages of invented spelling. In Stage 1, the child emphasizes the initial consonant of a word (such as the g in grass) and writes the letter G. In Stage 2, the child emphasizes the initial and final consonants (such as g and s in grass) and writes GS. In Stage 3, the child emphasizes initial, final, and interior consonants (such as g, r, and s in grass) and writes GRS. In Stage 4, the child emphasizes initial, final, and interior consonants, and the vowel place holder (the vowel may be incorrect, but it is in the correct position) and writes GRES. In Stage 5, the child uses "the full spelling of the word, with final components from visual memory systems and better vowel discrimination" (Graves, 1983, p. 185) and writes GRASS.

Graves, D.H. (1983). Writing: Teachers and children at work. Exeter, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.