In this course you'll see teachers guiding primary-grade students' writing (and drawing) at the very beginning of the school year. The instructional focus is on three foundational writing traits: ideas, organization and conventions.
This course focuses on effective primary-grade writing instruction early in the school year. You'll observe classroom-proven strategies for using a six trait model to engage incoming kindergartners in writing and build on the entry-level writing skills of first and second grade students.
You will learn how to:
- Effectively use read-alouds to highlight all six writing traits and bring them alive for students
- Help students not only generate a wealth of writing ideas but also record their "story seeds" in age-appropriate ways
- Maximize the benefits of student drawing as a catalyst for effective writing
- Teach students a variety of strategies for enriching their writing with greater detail
- Support and scaffold students as they explore and learn simple ways to organize both narrative and expository writing
- Begin teaching correct writing conventions within the context of writing
- Engage primary-age children in interactive modeled writing lessons rich in traits – and see the results in their independent writing
- Establish classroom-proven routines and procedures for a smoothly running daily writing workshop
- Launch all primary-grade students as authors – beginning on the very first day of school
Watch an excerpt from this course:
"I found this course to be very beneficial. I enjoyed watching teachers actually perform lessons. I am excited to use many of lessons that are modeled with my own students."
– R. Glynn
"I really enjoyed the course. I like that you can work at your own pace."
– T. Noyes
"Very informative with a lot of good ideas!"
– K. Marceski
"Overall I felt like I was able to take a great deal of information from this course and actually apply these strategies in my classroom. I am grateful I chose this course and hope to continue to use this on demand video course feature to further develop my teaching skills."
– S. Waterhouse
