Guided Writing In Reception

[Guest]

Hi there,

 

Could anyone please help with Guided Writing activities for my Reception Class. I do not have a problem really with my more able children, but I do struggle with ideas for my less able.

 

I work with small groups during Guided Writing sessions (one group each day). At the moment we generally plan what we are going to write together (talk for writing), this could be linked to a text we are reading or a topic of interest. We would then sound talk each word, with me acting as scribe for the whole group. However, the children are not really writing anything themselves (although a lot of them are not really ready for writing yet) and wondered if this was OK? Should they be overwriting or copying underneath my writing - although I really don't like this idea. HELP, I am so confused. Any advice would be welcome.

 

Thankyou

[Guest]

I was having similar issues with the less able children when I forst got into reception - except that rather than do the writing for the children the adults were writing in yellow pen for the children to go over. I felt that the children were not doing the writing for themselves so we've changed what we do.

 

As you say - lots of talk for writing first. Then the children think about what they want to write, and we concentrate on the initial sounds of the words. We use letter cards, and the children find the sound they are looking for (sometimes with help, sometimes unaided) then have a go at writing it. If it doesn't look 'right' it really doesn't matter - the child wrote it and to them it's 'right'. It's about their emergent writing, and as the children progress with lerning their letter sounds they filter into their writing. But for the less able, or less confident, it's about letting them feel like they have ownership of their writing.

 

We are noticing that our less able children are confident to have a go, they can hear the sounds in the words, and they know where to look to find the letters that make the sounds then have a go at writing them.

 

Hope that helps?

[Guest]

I tried a new idea with my year ones today (these are chidlren who still only score 2 or 3 for reading/writing/LLS in the FSP). As a group they discussed ideas, then one sentence was chosen for writing on the board as a group. We did the usual sounding out/talking about the number of words in the sentence etc. Then the sentence on the board was rubbed out and I asked the children to write their own sentence, either the same one or one of their own. Even though the result was unreadable with only a few initial sounds in there the children really felt like they had achieved something and were proud of their results - plus the writing was some of the best they've ever produced independently.

 

At this stage I think the main thing is that they are mark making and ascribing meaning to what they are writing, rather than writing anything readable. Personally I agree with you about the copy writing/overwriting - I think it's a terrible waste of the children's time and teaches them that they can't have a go by themselves because they can't do it 'right' without copying. I've seen children in year 1 where they quite obviously did this all through reception and if you left them to do any independent writing they would literally sit for an entire lesson without putting pencil to paper and repeatedly tell me "I can't do it", "I don't know how to write" etc.

[Guest]

Agree with all said so far! The children need to own what they 'write', no matter how it looks.

 

We have recently purchased small, 30 second sound recorders - on which they can record the sentence they create verbally to remind them of what they said.

We then write the sentence or caption together with the children always writing or finding the initial letters needed. I spend a lot of time on giving input on how we create sentences, where we start to write in English, the direction of text within the sentence and where we put full stops. These secretarial skills help the children with the technical side whilst their other skills are developing.

 

Jenni

[Guest]

Hi guys

 

I have been using te phase 2 caption cards. 'et to the top', 'a run in the sun' etc. We discuss the picture, and read the text together, I turn it over, then they have a go writing it themselves. After all has complted one caption, they put a little mark by each word they have spelt correctly. My kids seem to really enjoy his. Loving some of the ideas that have been shared xxx

[Guest]

Hi everybody,

 

Thanks for all your ideas - I will try some of them after the half term break. Great to hear that everyone has the same thinking about children's emergent writing as I do, but sometimes you do seem to get a big "bogged down" about expectations from KS1.

 

Thanks again