KinderGals: 4 Ways to Write With Kids (Day 1 in Vegas at I Teach K!)

There are many ways to write with kids! Depending on your goals and the amount of time, you can pick the type of writing that is a perfect fit! This blog post will share the 4 different ways we write with our kids!

Modeled Writing

One way to write with kids is Modeled Writing. In Modeled Writing, the teacher is doing all of the thinking and all of the writing. This fits perfect if you want to share some new content with the children. On this anchor chart, we were introducing the basic 2D shapes. Each day as we introduced the new shape, we quickly added it to the anchor chart. We were doing all of the thinking and all of the writing! While shapes is the math standard, we also add a language arts standard to our lessons. We ask ourselves, do we want our focus to be on words begin with a sound, we can say words slowly and stretch them out, or some words have a silent letter at the end? Then, as we are writing the words, we share our thinking out loud as we write the words. We tend to lose focus! By writing the standard on our plans, we keep to one thing instead of jumping between print concepts leading to confusion.

Shared Writing

Another way to write with kids is Shared Writing. In Shared Writing, the teacher still has control of the pen, but the kids are helping to construct the text. This type of writing is a great way to review. It provides a structure for the teacher to check for understanding of newly learned concepts. In this lesson, we were reviewing what we knew about patterns. The children were sharing their thinking and I was recording it on the chart. Once again, we want to be sure and focus our language arts standard. We can decided if we want to work on spaces between words, sentences start with a capital letter, sentences end with a period, or some words we can write quickly (sight words).

Interactive Writing

Interactive Writing is probably the most misunderstood type of writing. In Interactive Writing the teacher shares the pen AND the thinking. "Shares" is the most important word! This doesn't mean that you give the kid the pen and let them do all of the writing. Instead, after determining your literacy focus, share the pen for that part of the writing. For example, if you are working on beginning sounds, the kids would only help you write the beginning letter. The teacher fills in the rest of the word-thus sharing the pen.

Independent Writing

During Independent Writing, the kids are totally in the driver's seat. They are responsible for ALL of the thinking and ALL of the writing. This type of writing occurs in many different ways in our classrooms. The children write in journals, during writer's workshop, in centers, during math, and for Science and Social Studies. This is a great way to examine where children are as writers. What kinds of things are they doing independently? How can we use that information to help us plan modeled, shared, or interactive writing experiences?
Here are a few other blog posts about interactive writing if you are looking for more!