![]() Writing prompts help aid students who might be stuck in their own ideas or don’t know where to begin. Writing prompts are statements or images that help students kick off their writing or even lead their writing in a specific direction. Gathering this information is a critical aspect in helping you differentiate your instruction and guiding you on the route to take for helping them. What aspects of writing do they enjoy, and what is their least favorite part. Take time and sit down with your struggling writers to find out what is most challenging for them. We can learn a lot about our student’s struggles when we simply ask. Remind your students that we might not all be using or working on the same thing, and that’s ok. It doesn’t look the same for each student. Struggling writers may benefit from using word banks, sentence starters, or an alphabet/sound checklist. With differentiated instruction comes providing the appropriate supports, which may look different for some students. But, small groups are a great way to work individually with 2-5 students who might have similar struggles. Differentiating can seem near impossible when you have a group of 20-30 students in your classrooms. With that being said, differentiation is extremely important. This is especially true in their writing abilities. ![]() Each one of your students has different strengths and areas of improvement. Not all of your students are functioning at the same skill level. The same goes with writing, and we can’t expect our students to make writing gains if we don’t give them daily practice opportunities. When you are learning something new, you benefit from being constantly immersed in the new information. Your students need to know that you value writing, and the best way to do that is to make sure that students write every day. There should be a time for writing every day. Scaffolding is an effective way to avoid overwhelm when it comes to writing. Practicing orally is a great way to scaffold. Within each day, I also scaffold by having students tell their writing partner what they will write that day. The next day they write the middle of their story. One day students just write the beginning of the story. Right now we are writing personal narratives. For instance, I break down the writing process for my students so that they understand all the components. You can use scaffolding in all areas of your writing lesson. We often push our students to move too quickly, and it’s how we end up with struggling students. When we move too fast, we end up getting lost. Using a scaffolding approach really allows our students to slow down. Scaffolding requires students to break down the larger pieces into smaller steps.ĭuring the first half of first grade, I am doing a high level of scaffolding, especially when starting a new genre. Scaffolding is a critical aspect of teaching writing, and it’s helpful for all of your learners-even those super-advanced writers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |