Words are the building blocks of sentences, and sentences the building blocks of stories. Time spent in building the writing vocabulary of beginner authors will help in motivating even the poorest writers in your classroom. The activities that follow will get you off to a good start!
Create a Writing Environment
In a classroom that nurtures young writers, the environment is filled with print -books, magazines, words on the wall, bulletin boards with words, sentence strips, a writing table with a simple dictionary, etc. Don't forget environmental print such as restaurant menus, grocery ads, empty cereal boxes, can labels, and other examples of print the child sees outside of school.
Word Walls Make a Difference
A child's oral vocabulary is much larger than his writing vocabulary. Children often think of a word for a story, but don't use it because they can't correctly spell it. If writing is your focus, have lots of word walls to help children focus on composition without worrying about spelling during the prewriting stage.
- Color & Number Words: If these words are still being taught, attach pictures with the words. Even if they have been mastered, keep the words on the wall for those children who cannot spell them.
- Little Words: These are sight words necessary for writing any basic sentence. These words will vary depending upon the level and writing ability of your children. Examples of sight words: and, but, any, almost, often
- Feeling Words: These words give even the most gifted writers difficulty. Primary children generally use good/bad; happy/sad when asked how they feel. Encourage children to think about how they would feel if they forgot their lunch (or lunch money) at home that morning. Write words on the board to substitute for sad....like unhappy, disappointed, blue, worried, etc. Use these words as a start for the Feeling Words wall. A prewriting activity for a Scary Words wall might be to turn off the lights and burn a candle in the room in silence for a few minutes. Then turn on the lights and ask children how that made them feel. Use these words and others for the wall.
- Big Words: These words are multisyllable words that your advanced writers might want to use in their stories. Words might be taken from your own daily conversations with children. For example, if you said, "It's important that you remember to stay in line for lunch today," you might stop and add the word important to the Big Words ladder and discuss it's meaning with the class. Multisyllable words might also come from read aloud stories, or textbooks used in class (science, social studies, etc.)
Word Walls or Word Ladders?
If you have a spacious classroom with lots of wall space, you might use bulletin board border to make smaller areas for smaller word walls. If space is limited, or if you only plan to post about 5 or 10 words at a time for younger children, word ladders will work just fine. Be sure each word is printed clearly on an individual sentence strip, or poster board strip, so words might be easily added or removed from walls or ladders.
Ladders are just word strips arranged top to bottom in the shape of a ladder. One imaginative primary teacher even brought an old wooden ladder to her room and taped words to it. The important thing is to be sure the words are printed large enough to be seen by students seated across the room, and are appropriate for the writing level of your students. Aside from that, just let your imagination and creativity be your guide.
Looking for ideas on how to set up a daily writing time for your students? See the tips given in this Scholastic article. If you discover gifted young authors in your classroom, check out KidPub. For a small cost per year, you can publish an unlimited number of student stories.
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